


At the Turning of the Tide

by Laura Kaye (laurakaye)



Series: From Now Until the Ending of the World [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Basil (OC) - Freeform, Biting, Blood Drinking, Blood Sharing, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Does Not Have A Pantaloon Fetish He Just Thinks They are Sexy That's Not the Same Thing, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint Barton is a 600-year-old packrat, Clint Barton is the Softest Vampire, Clint Barton's Apartment Building, Clint Barton's canon backstory only now it's vampires, Clint Barton's internalized vampirephobia, Clint may not be human anymore but he still needs love just like everybody else does, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dog Cops (Marvel), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Empathic Vampire Bond To The Rescue, Empathy, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Half-Vampires, How To Hide Your Vampirism From Your New Boyfriend An Essay By Clint Barton, Hugs, Human/Vampire Relationship, I've done my own twist on vampire traits, It's Right There In The Name, Literary References & Allusions, Love Confessions, M/M, Make Household Linens Out Of Linen Again Please, Missions Gone Wrong, Mutual Pining, Phil Coulson Believes In Heroes, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug, Phil Coulson is Bad at Talking About His Feelings, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Nick Fury, Psychic Bond, Rasputin founded the Red Room, Red Room (Marvel), References to Shakespeare, Resolved Sexual Tension, Secret Past, Secrets, Team as Family, Vampire Clint Barton, Vampires, What Happened in Budapest (Marvel), just a bunch of emotions all up the joint really, like what is Blade?, look Shakespeare was basically the Michael Bay of his time and Clint was into it, look there are canonical vampires in the Marvel universe okay I didn't make this stuff up, or really more like discovering you both already did, or something like that anyway, really super fluffy considering the topic, the Battle of Agincourt, well also a secret present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurakaye/pseuds/Laura%20Kaye
Summary: Clint Barton, English longbowman, died in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He's been through a lot since then.Clint Barton, Agent of SHIELD, thinks he's finally reached a decent equilibrium in 2009. He's got a place to do good, help keeping himself out of the tabloids, and he gets to work with the two people on Earth he loves the most. Sure, he might be hopelessly pining over Phil Coulson and terrified that Phil will find out his secret, but it's not like Phil's likely to guess; after all, everyone knows vampires don't exist.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Nick Fury, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: From Now Until the Ending of the World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944730
Comments: 181
Kudos: 333





	1. Before Budapest

**Author's Note:**

> So I was trying to finish something else and got hit upside the brain with the idea for this story and couldn't think about anything else for a couple days, so I decided to go with the flow and just write the thing. It was originally just supposed to be a short one-shot (pause for skeptical laughter from everyone who knows me) but then I just kept thinking of more world-building stuff I wanted to add, so now here we are. (And also, am I seriously the first one who wrote Actual Historical Longbowman Clint? Surely not! Rec me any others you know in the comments, I've got a taste for it now.)
> 
> All the thanks in the world are due to everyone who heard me out when all I wanted to do was babble about Soft Vampire Clint and encouraged my new obsession, especially Orion, Abby, Schuyler, and the Order of St. Wilfrid.
> 
> Blood content is mostly due to canon-typical injuries in the line of SHIELD duty and references to the vampire diet. Overall there's a lot more snuggling than biting, for a vampire story, because that's just where my brain needs to go in this hell year. Some references to long-ago bad things of the Red Room variety.
> 
> This story is completely drafted and will be published as I finish revising each chapter.

Over the years, Clint had learned how to lie with the truth.

“Oh yeah,” he’d scoff, rolling his shoulders before pulling his arrows out of the target and putting them back in his quiver. “Y’know, I just never learned to move with the times. I figure, if it was good enough for the Battle of Agincourt, it’s good enough for SHIELD. Show me anyone who can do _this_ with a sniper rifle—” and he’d be off again, showy and impressive, and the muttering would die down. Yeah, Barton, he’s a weird SOB, but he always hits what he’s aiming at, so whatever. Snipers are always kind of funny, anyway. And what’s the deal with him and the Black Widow? I heard she’s a lot older than she looks. I heard the Soviets _did something_ to her, she’s got powers. I heard—

“You should be careful what you say,” he’d tell them. “She’s got ears like a bat,” and they’d ask, Barton, what do you know? And he’d wink and say “that would be telling… just don’t get on her bad side.” 

Once one of them asked Nat herself what her secret was to keep her skin so good. She’d blinked at them, too slow, and said, perfectly deadpan, “the blood of the innocent,” and they’d grumbled and cursed her and gone away, petulant.

Nat was even better than he was at lying with the truth. She could even do it with the truths that hurt her most, but Clint tried not to do that anymore. He didn’t like the way it made him feel—or, well, the way it made him stop feeling—so he never tried to turn some of his truths into airy lies. He thought of it sometimes, of saying _sure, I was an English longbowman and I died at Agincourt, but then I woke up again and a French swordsman kept me in thrall until I put an arrow through his heart and ran away._ Or _yeah, you guessed it, we’re pretty sure Nat’s immortal, there was this thing with Rasputin one time, my blood was involved, it was a whole deal._ He never did it, though, even if he sometimes enjoyed imagining the looks on people’s faces if he had.

He’d never quashed the rumors that he and Nat were lovers, mostly because she found them useful but also partly because he couldn’t just say _I just can’t feel that way about her, she’s almost like my kid_ without remembering too much. He’d been in a bad place then—literally and metaphorically—and even though it had given him his Nat, he still didn’t like to think about it. She’d been scrawny and tiny, deep wild anger in her eyes as she’d put all the strength of her little body into hauling open the cell door. She’d picked the locks of the silver manacles with slim steady fingers, pulled out the tubes and wrapped gauze around the holes they left, then turned his face up to look him in the eyes until he fought his way through the fog enough to make an interrogative sound. 

She’d held up one of the bottles of his blood. “If you drink this, will it make you strong?”

He’d shaken his head. 

“It made _me_ strong,” she said, looking skeptical, and even as out of it as he’d been, Clint had felt his gorge rise at the reminder. He hadn’t seen that much of what they were doing with his blood, once they got it out of him, but he’d seen enough, felt it somehow; the ones that burned and died, the ones that went mad, the ones that seemed to reach into Clint’s bones and pull him a million directions he was too weak to go. 

The little girls, distant and muddled and cold, snuffed out one by one, until at last there was one that lived—one that sparked like lighting, flashed like moonlight on a blade. _Natalia._ The greatest success, he’d heard them say. 

He guessed it hadn’t worked out for them the way they’d planned.

“Doesn’t work on me,” he’d managed to croak. “Not once it’s out. Dunno why.”

She’d sighed. “It was worth asking.” She stepped away, out of arm’s reach, and raised the bottle to her lips. 

“Don’t—” he tried to stop her, but she cut him off with a sharp gesture.

“I’ll do what I must,” she’d said. “It hasn’t hurt me so far.”

“Hasn’t it?” 

She’d ignored him, drinking the bottle down steadily, not reacting to the taste. When she was done, she’d corked up the other bottles and tucked them into a knapsack.

“Wait here,” she’d said, ignoring the fact that he was in no condition to do anything else, and darted out of the cell. She’d reappeared quickly, dragging a body behind her by his feet. The head bumped over the stones as she pulled it toward Clint, and it stirred weakly; not quite a body yet, apparently. Clint recognized him then. He’d liked to play with knives. 

Natalia arranged him in an untidy pile next to where Clint was slumped against the wall and picked up his limp arm. She took one of the scalpels from the tray next to him and cut a neat incision, sending the blood welling up, the scent of it making Clint dizzy with hunger. 

“Here,” she’d said, holding the wound up to Clint’s mouth. “You need to be stronger, too.”

He’d held back, but just barely. He couldn’t… not in front of a child, not like this. But… she knew what was going to happen. She’d gotten everything ready. She’d even made the cut for him, was offering blood from the man’s arm, not his neck, because she’d seen the times they’d tried to make him, seen the way he’d gag and fight. “I… Natalia, I…”

“You saw what he did,” she’d told him, blazing in the murky half-light, all red hair and white face and blood ringing her mouth. “And you didn’t even see it all. He owes us this.” She’d shrugged her thin shoulders. “Anyway, he’s not going to live either way, so there’s no use wasting it.” 

Clint wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t ashamed either, because he _had_ seen, and she was _right_ , and he’d been nearly starving. She’d just watched him drink the man dry, and when he let the body fall she had smiled at him, tiny and approving like he was a particularly slow pupil finally showing some progress. She’d been fierce and beautiful and terrifying, but so small, and she’d been hurt so badly, and she was his _kin_. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew it, recognized it on a level too deep for logic.

He hadn’t known what had happened, or where he was, or how long it had been since they’d caught him; all he’d known was that she was _his,_ and they were still so deep underground, and he had to help her run.

 _Le sang est le pouvoir,_ Duquesne had always said, and Clint’s blood had been old enough and potent enough even then that it changed her, even though he hadn’t drunk from her in return. He wouldn’t, either, he never would; he wouldn’t take the chance of making her more like him. Even so, he could feel her, could feel part of himself in her still, that pull that said _this one is mine_. 

At least she still aged, albeit slowly. They’d parted for a while, once she finally looked old enough to live on her own, and he’d missed her the whole time, the ache only assuaged by the way he always knew she was alive and his hope that she’d find some way to be happy.

Clint hadn’t worried about his own happiness for a long time. It didn’t really seem relevant, anymore; it was more important to be useful, to do good, to try to right the scales somehow, pay the universe back for all the things he’d done with Duquesne, any way he could. He’d actually been a soldier again for a while, in the war they’d eventually call World War II—had gone back to England for the first time in so long, had to fight to keep his old accent from creeping back in. But he couldn’t stay forever; long-term relationships weren’t a good idea when you never looked any older.

Eventually, technology had caught up with him. Eventually, he’d taken the wrong job, and instead of a stake through the heart (or a bullet through the brain, which wasn’t as deadly but was possibly even more inconvenient), he’d found Nick Fury, and Nick Fury had given him SHIELD. Had given him a way to make a difference and a way to stay safe, not to get caught in the ever-tightening web of information that made it harder and harder to disappear from town and reappear as your own grandson thirty or forty years later.

Sometimes, Clint really missed the days when you could just roll up with some plausible-looking luggage and a few letters of introduction and just be set for a good five or ten years somewhere.

He’d worked almost exclusively with Fury at first, but then Fury’d been promoted one level too high to be running field teams anymore and he’d asked Clint to work with someone else. Phil Coulson was Fury’s friend. Fury trusted him. He was good, Fury’d promised. Clint would like him.

And oh, Clint had. He _did._ Nat had pegged it immediately when she’d blown back into his life, her face only a little older but her eyes telling a different tale. She’d hardly had to wheedle at all to have him spilling everything to her, the two of them curled together like nested commas in Clint’s bed, the windowless gloom of his basement apartment making it feel like it could be any time, could be 1916 or 1935 or 1967, the thread of Clint’s blood in her veins singing of home and safety and family in the back of his head. He told her about how kind Phil was, how steadfast and clever, how he listened to Clint and stood up for him, how he treated him like a comrade in arms, like someone who mattered. How he inspired people without even seeming to realize it, made them want to do better, be more. How human he was, endearingly awkward around children and animals, charmingly enthusiastic about his secret hobbies. How hard it had been to keep himself from taking advantage of it all, how many invitations to come over, for dinner, or to watch a game, or to have a drink, that Clint had forced himself to turn down, because Phil didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Clint couldn’t let him invite Clint inside his home, unknowing. But he couldn’t stand to watch the light in Phil’s face dim when he turned down his invitations, either, so he’d invite Phil to restaurants, bars, movie theaters—anywhere public, anywhere safe.

“Maybe you should tell him,” Nat had said, stroking his hair. “You aren’t like me, I know it. You get lonely. You need people.” 

“I can’t,” he’d whispered. He could sense her pulse, slow for a human but still singing to him of her life, the more precious for having been so nearly lost. “I can’t. Nat, he looks at me—he makes me feel _alive_.” He’d tried it, a time or two, when he’d found someone he thought knew him well enough, liked him well enough, to see that he was still a person underneath the fangs. 

There were only so many times that even a heart as tough and battered as Clint’s could take watching love curdle into fear and loathing on a beloved face.

“I can’t take him knowing what I am.”

She’d scoffed. “If he’s as good as you say, he _knows_ what you are. What you are inside, the truth,” she said. “If he’s small-minded enough to hold it against you that you have a, a _condition_ —”

“Being a legendary predatory monst—creature isn’t exactly a condition,” he’d protested. (She didn’t like it when he called himself a monster, said if he was then so was she, and that couldn’t stand; she was nothing like that and never would be, so Clint tried to censor himself for her sake.)

“If he holds it against you he isn’t worth your time,” she’d insisted, stubborn as ever, and he’d missed her so much, like she’d carved out a chunk of him and carried it with her through the world, and the space where it had been would always ache until they were reunited.

“Just wait until you know him,” Clint had told her. “You’ll see.” 

She’d eventually conceded that Phil was special, but she hadn’t stopped needling him to let Phil in on the secret. But Clint had been adamant on that point. Phil was so pure and bright, his spirit so beautiful. Clint would never do anything to dim it. And the truth was, Clint’s life at SHIELD could only ever be temporary, because even SHIELD Medical couldn’t keep an agent in the field forever. The time would inevitably come when Clint had to move on.

If Clint persisted in letting himself form connections with normal people—and he did, because Duquesne hadn’t and Clint would rather be dust than to ever become like his Maker was—he had to come to terms with the relative brevity of those connections. One day, Phil would be gone from Clint’s life, and all he’d have left would be his memories. It hurt—of course it hurt—but it would hurt forever, either way; better to take the sweet ache of want and the warmth of Phil’s smile than to keep reliving the moment that smile turned to horror, to disgust, to fear. And sure, maybe it was selfish, but Clint liked to think that when he was gone, Phil would think of him sometimes, and smile.

So the years had passed, and Natasha had stayed, and Fury had become Director. Clint got to do good work, alongside two of the dearest people he’d known in all his long centuries of existence, and if he wasn’t completely happy he was at least content.

And then one day in Budapest everything changed.

It wasn’t much that started it, just shitty luck that could have happened to them on any one of hundreds of missions. A location that should have been safe had been compromised, not by any double agent or betrayal but by the simple fact that there were only so many vacant, unmonitored warehouses in a given city. The one they’d picked to use as their base while Natasha ran a tricky bit of infiltration work had, unbeknownst to SHIELD, been selected as a convenient location for the local organized crime syndicate to stash various contraband. One minute they’d been monitoring Nat’s progress over the comms, sharing a cheese-and-garlic lángos Clint had bought off a street cart on the way (the whole garlic thing was a myth, thankfully), and the next they were fighting off a room full of pissed-off Hungarian mobsters.

Even that would have been fine, normally—Phil was worth at least three men in a fight, and Clint had unnatural strength and speed, not to mention over five hundred years of combat experience—except that one of the mobsters got in around Phil’s blind spot and managed to slam his head into a pillar with a sickening noise. Clint whirled, panic rising in the few seconds before he saw Phil get back on his feet, and that moment of divided focus was enough. 

The shotgun blast was near-deafening at such close range, and it first it just served to piss Clint off; he let his instincts rise, let the leash off his speed, and in a matter of seconds the three mobsters he’d been fighting were all out of commission. He thought at first that Shotgun Asshole might have missed somehow, but as soon as he stopped moving and looked down at the bloody mess of his torso a burning pain swept over him. 

_Fuck._

This was a mortal wound, he knew, or it would have been if he’d still been mortal. He bled slower now, but he still bled, and the adrenaline of a fight always set his blood racing besides. He was already low enough to feel it, weakness and pain warring with a searing spike of hunger, like his body was trying to urge him to feed before he was too weak to move, but it was too late for that. Phil was still grappling with the last mobster, but Clint would have to trust him to handle it; Clint’s reserves were gone and even if he’d been willing to feed in front of Phil, all the mobsters were either gone or dead already and therefore no use to him.

He dragged himself behind some cover and tried to hold himself together enough to start to heal, but it was bad, he knew it was bad; the gun had been loaded for bear, and Clint had taken it point-blank. Nat would have heard the commotion, was probably already on her way back, but he was starting to think she wouldn’t get there in time for even Clint’s healing factor to do any good. 

He was fuzzing in and out of consciousness when the sounds of the fight finally stopped. 

“Clint?” Phil’s voice was rough, and at first he sounded worried but not hurt too bad. He heard Phil moving, probably coming around the corner of the stack of wooden palettes they’d been fighting near. His footsteps came closer, and Clint was distantly glad. It was always better for Phil to be closer.

“Are you—” Phil cut off with a sharp cry, horror and pain in his voice that filled Clint with fear for him, that maybe one of the attackers had come back. But when Clint forced his eyes open, Phil was alone, kneeling next to Clint with a nasty bruise coming up on his cheekbone and a split in his lip and bleakness in his eyes. He pulled off his jacket—and even as bad off as he was, Clint distantly appreciated the broad span of shoulder underneath—and fumbled at Clint’s midsection. A sheet of agony made Clint gray out again—why was Phil hurting him? Phil never, he didn’t—

“—just hold on, Barton, she’s coming, we’ll get you out of this—”

Clint looked down. Phil’s white shirt sleeves were turning red, his coat wadded up and— _shitfuckshit_ that _hurt—_

“—on me! You have to stay awake until— _Clint!_ Look at me, you can’t sleep yet—”

Oh. He was trying to put pressure on the wound, though it had to be obvious how futile an effort it was. Clint’s guts were a mess; this wasn’t the kind of thing normal people survived. But Phil was trying anyway, both hands and what felt like his full bodyweight pressing down on the places the bleeding was worst.

Oh, Phil.

It hurt so much—so much more than just physically. Clint knew how this would play out. He’d slip under once he lost enough blood, would lose control of his sluggish heart and look like the dead thing he truly was. Phil would blame himself for failing to save him, and Clint wouldn’t be able to soothe that pain, because even if Nat got his body and found some scumbag to bleed for him and he pulled through, he couldn’t exactly resurrect himself from a death someone as sharp as Phil had witnessed. He’d have to stay dead to this life, and start again somewhere else. He’d done it over and over through the centuries, he’d always known he’d have to do it eventually, but he’d never dreaded it so.

Things went dark again, and when Clint pulled himself back this time he could taste his own blood sharp and sour on his tongue, and there were tears streaked through the grime on Phil’s face. Phil was saying something but it was hard to focus on it now, Clint’s hearing seeming to cut in and out as he tried to will his body not to shut down, not yet.

He wasn’t ready to lose Phil yet.

He tried to move. He wanted to touch Phil’s face, just once before the chance was gone forever, but his hand wouldn’t do more than twitch. There wasn’t much air to make words, but he tried. He still tried. At least his mouth could shape the words, at least there was still enough air in his lungs that he could manage a sort of whisper.

“Phil,” he managed, and Phil looked up from the wound, his eyes wet and red but still so beautiful. 

Clint didn’t think anyone had ever cried for him before.

 _Don’t be sad,_ he wanted to say. _Don’t blame yourself. I want your memories of me to make you happy._

“Phil,” he said again, his eyes slipping shut, and Phil made a terrible, bitten-off sound, and then Clint felt—he—

Phil kissed him, burning hot on Clint’s already-cold skin, and blood from the split on his lip smeared between them, jolting Clint back from the brink. It tasted—it tasted—it was sorrow and grief and a well of emotion so deep Clint couldn’t even identify it, it was sweet rich electric on his tongue, it made his teeth lengthen and ache, and it was a mercy that Clint was already so far gone that even his survival instincts—to follow that taste back to the source, to latch onto the throbbing rush of it and drink it dry—couldn’t muster more than a soft suck on Phil’s lip as he pulled away. He tried to say Phil’s name again, but all that came out was a shuddering sigh, and it got harder and harder to keep his eyes open, even as Phil’s voice got more and more desperate.

As he faded away for the last time, Phil’s tears and blood tingling on his lips, he thought that maybe it was all for the best, after all. 


	2. After Budapest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Close to six hundred years Clint had been dead. Maybe Natasha was right when she said that was no reason to stop living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET THE HEALING BEGIN

It was really very surprising when he woke up again, sore as hell in a SHIELD facility, with Natasha and Nick Fury looming over him like some kind of twin gods of judgment.

“You asshole, you couldn’t tell me blood transfusions don’t work on vampires?” Fury was scowling down at Clint like he’d personally molested his cat or something. (Which was totally unfair, it wasn’t Clint’s fault cats hated him now.)

“Don’t they?” He started to sit up, then winced as his body protested; everything seemed more or less back where it should be, but he wasn’t anywhere close to a hundred percent yet. “I dunno, I’ve never had one before. Also, ixnay on the ampirevay, someone might hear you.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Yes, because we’re both so likely to discuss sensitive information without taking precautions.” 

“Yeah, point,” Clint said. He found the bed controls and raised the head, so at least he wasn’t looking up their noses. “Sorry.” 

“For future reference, apparently you have to ingest the blood for it to do you any good,” she said. “Also, tube-feeding someone blood is absolutely revolting but I know how to do it now. You’re welcome.”

Huh. Come to think of it, his throat did feel kind of strange, but his mouth didn’t taste nearly as foul as he’d have expected. Actually, it tasted… kind of great? Like… oh shit.

He sat bolt upright, ignoring the bolt of pain from his newly-mended guts, and grabbed at Nat’s hand. “Phil?” Where was he, why wasn’t he here, had he—had someone caught him off-guard while he was trying—had—

“Calm down, he’s fine,” Nat said, gently pushing him back down onto the pillows. “He isn’t here because your ‘healing factor’ is classified, he thinks you’re still in surgery.”

“Oh,” Clint breathed, trying to come down from his panic. “Oh, right. I—he’s okay, though? You’re sure? He took some hits, he might have a concussion.” 

“He’ll live,” Fury said dryly. “Which is more than he expected for you, so we need to talk about reading him in on your situation.”

“No,” Clint said, knee-jerk. “No, you can’t, please, I don’t want him to know about me. Nat, you _know,_ you know why.” 

“I know, and I still think you’re wrong,” she said. “But it’s gone beyond that now, Clint. By the time I got to you, you’d gone totally cold, but he was still trying to give you CPR.” She bit her lip. “He was—I’ve never seen him like that. Telling him nothing after all that would be unspeakably cruel, and I know that’s not what you want.”

“And that aside, Coulson’s no fool,” Fury added. “He knows what death looks like. Unless you’re prepared to execute Omega Protocol, we have to tell him something or he’ll never let it rest.” 

Omega Protocol. The plan they had for the day when they could no longer hide that Clint wasn’t aging. The plan for him to get a new identity, to leave everything behind and start again.

Omega Protocol meant never seeing Phil again, meant leaving Phil thinking that he’d really failed. Meant leaving everything behind that had made this lifetime one of the best Clint’d had in centuries. 

Phil was human, probably at least halfway through his life. If he was careful, if he was lucky, Clint might have another ten or twenty years before he’d be so obviously unchanged he couldn’t stay. A decade here or there wasn’t that much time, not to Clint, but a decade with Phil? That was precious, irreplaceable. Clint wanted every year he could possibly get, to hoard the memories for… later. For the time when the loss couldn’t be prevented.

“There’s another thing,” Natasha said quietly. “He was giving you mouth-to-mouth. His lip was bleeding, and your… everything was bleeding.” She laid a hand on his, light like a falling leaf. “Can you feel him? The way you feel me?” 

The idea blindsided him for a moment, too big in its implications to even process. He closed his eyes, reaching inside himself to the place where he could always feel Natasha, the live-wire thread of awareness vivid as ever, and focused on ignoring the familiar, looking for something new.

He found it.

“Oh,” he said, his voice coming out tiny and breathy and overwhelmed. It was no wonder he hadn’t noticed it before; Nat was spark and flash like lightning, like an inferno, looming even more dazzling than usual since she was so close by. But when he looked past that, there was another presence there. It was faint but steady, a trickle of awareness like a tiny brook babbling over stones, the promise of relief after a long and weary march. 

Clint didn’t even think before he dipped inside.

It was different than Natasha, he thought. Not only in degree—it had only been a very _little_ blood—but in kind, because it hadn’t been like before, hadn’t been one-sided. He’d tasted Phil too, after all, and now the slim thread of connection in his blood was giving him… echoes. He remembered how Duquesne had somehow always known how Clint felt, had known to punish him for rebellions even when he’d kept his face a mask, so that Clint had never been able to break free until he’d learned to think about it but not feel anything.

 _Le sang, c’est le pouvoir,_ indeed, but so much more than that; Clint could feel Phil, faint but unmistakeable, he could _feel_ him, drugging exhaustion and pain and fear and a sorrow impossibly deep.

“I feel him,” he whispered. “Nat. He’s so sad.” He thought it might break what was left of his heart, how sad Phil was. “Is that—is—” _is that for me,_ he couldn’t say, couldn’t ask. Because what if it was? What if it _wasn’t?_ Clint couldn’t ignore it, either way. Phil should never feel like that. He should only ever be happy, safe and free, adored, full of light and life. 

“Of course it’s because of you,” Nat said. “Keep up. Were you not listening to anything we’ve said? As far as he knows, you’re dead, and we’re just being too stubborn to admit it. He’s been out there for hours, waiting for someone to come tell him we’ve given up.”

Clint blinked his aching eyes, wishing he could still cry. He couldn’t just leave Phil like that. But… if Phil hated him once he found out, he wouldn’t be able to hide it now. Clint would know. He’d _feel_ it, deep inside, his own heart turned into a knife to cut himself on forever. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to bear it. But he couldn’t just leave Phil that way, choking on grief like splintered glass. Not when it was so needless. 

The truth was, unless the world’s criminals suddenly decided to go full-on Buffy, Clint was almost guaranteed to survive anything that happened in the field. Phil would almost surely never have to watch Clint die, not truly. Clint could give him that, could take away today’s hurt and the fear for the future both. How long had it taken Nat to get back to the warehouse? How many minutes had Phil spent, kneeling in Clint’s blood, giving CPR he had to know was futile as Clint’s body grew cold? 

“I could… I could tell him something,” Clint said at last, hesitant. “Not—please not all of it, I don’t want him to know. The things I—I don’t want him to know that. But… enough? That he could know I’m… different. A little of what I can do, even if not why.” 

“Technically, the why is classified so high even you aren’t cleared to know,” Fury said. “You don’t have to give him the full Bram Stoker, Barton. Just the broad strokes. At least enough to keep him from risking his own life trying to save you from something that isn’t as dangerous to you as it would be to him.” 

He’d never thought about that, he realized. He’d worked so long with Natasha and Fury, he hadn’t even thought about the risks that someone might take—that _Phil_ might take—if he thought that Clint was human. If the men they’d been fighting had called for backup, if they had found Phil in that warehouse undefended, bending over Clint’s body. That broad back, exposed and vulnerable as Phil wept for him. Phil’s precious blood mingling with Clint’s on the ground.

No. _No._ He wouldn’t let it happen. 

“I’ll tell him,” he said. “Not… not the why, but the what. You’re right. He needs to know.”

Fury nodded. “I’ll bring him by, later,” he said. He paused, then rested a hand on Clint’s shoulder, gripping it tight, all their years of fighting side by side somehow expressing itself through that small point of contact. “For the record,” he said, “I’m glad. I wasn’t ready for Omega Protocol yet either.” 

“Neither was I,” said Natasha, because even though there was no need for her to burn her identity just because Clint had, they both knew she’d never send him off to a new life alone.

Clint was still afraid—terrified—of the risk he was about to take, but he smiled anyway. Maybe, he thought. If he did it right. Maybe he didn’t have to lose everything, not quite yet.

As it turned out, Fury’s “later” was about forty-five minutes; Clint thought he probably didn’t want to chance Clint getting cold feet now that he’d finally agreed to talk to Phil about his secret. And it was a reasonable concern; honestly, if he hadn’t still felt like hammered shit and been tethered to a bunch of tubes and machines besides, Clint might have given in to the temptation to bolt once he felt that soft thread of _Phil_ getting stronger and stronger inside him as they approached. The pain Phil felt was still there, but it was tempered now with something delicate and shimmering that felt like it might vanish if Clint looked at it too hard; he wasn’t completely sure—he’d not exactly had a lot of material for comparison—but he thought it might be hope.

Natasha paused mid-sentence, a strange look on her face. “Oh, that is bizarre,” she said. “I think—is Phil coming here?”

He blinked, too surprised for anything but the truth. “Yeah,” he said. “You—can you feel that too?”

“Not the way I can feel you,” she said. “But there’s definitely something. Like… catching movement out of the corner of your eye, or smelling someone’s perfume in a room they’ve just left. I don’t get anything from it, really—I can’t even say why I know it’s Phil, it just sort of… feels like him.” 

“Huh,” Clint said. He’d always give Natasha anything he had, but there was a deep-rooted part of him that was glad she apparently couldn’t feel Phil the same way he could. That there was some part of Phil, even if it faded in time, that would only be for the two of them to share. “Could be useful in the field, maybe.” 

“Hm, probably,” she said. “We should work with it some, once you’re back on your feet.” She got up, crossing to the door and opening it even as Fury was reaching for the knob. “Excellent timing, as always,” she said. “You can sit with him while I go get some food. I’ll get you something, too.” 

“What a good idea,” Fury said. “I’ll come with you. Phil, you stay here until we get back.” There was a tiny scuffling sound, and then Phil came in, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. He was hunched over, like he couldn’t even bear to look at the bed; Clint wasn’t sure how much of the misery and desperate hope he was reading in Phil’s body language and how much he was getting through the blood, but he ached at it, either way. By the time the heavy door swung closed behind Nat and Fury, Clint felt halfway to desperate to make Phil smile, take that invisible weight off his shoulders.

“Hey,” Clint said, his voice coming out suspiciously rough.

Phil jerked, his face and the sense of him both going blank for a moment before joy spread over his face and through the link to Clint, diffusing through him like Clint was a stack of pancakes and Phil was butter and syrup, pouring over all warm and sweet. 

“You—you’re awake,” Phil said. “You—are you—you’re all right?”

“Sore as hell, but I’m gonna be fine,” Clint said. “Hey, c’mere, sit down, you look beat.” He gestured at the chair that Nat had left, which was still pulled up close to Clint’s bed, the railing dropped to make it easier to hold the hand that wasn’t stuck full of IVs. (Clint wasn’t sure if the stuff in the IVs was doing anything in particular for him or if they were just set dressing in case of visitors without enough clearance, but he’d learned not to question it.)

Phil took the chair and slumped into it, uncharacteristically graceless. The bruise on his face looked awful, the whole right side swollen and purpled; Clint wondered if he’d fractured the cheekbone when the goon in Budapest had slammed his head into that post. On top of that, he had a line of sutures on one temple, his lip was heavily scabbed over, and his movements were stiff and careful, like maybe he hurt all over. Of the two of them, Clint thought, maybe Phil should be the one still in the hospital bed. 

Phil sighed, pushing his glasses up to rub over his reddened eyes with one hand. His knuckles were bruised, and Clint could see traces of blood still caught under his nails. He looked up, studying Clint, his gaze lighting on the IV stand and the monitor leads snaking out from under Clint’s gown before coming to rest on Clint’s face. His expression was flat with exhaustion, but the trickle of connection between them was getting stronger, full of something deep and complicated that Clint couldn’t exactly pin down.

Clint looked back at him, not trying to keep the affection off his own face. “Hey,” he said again, letting his voice get just as warm and fond as it wanted to get. “Thanks for coming.”

Phil opened his mouth, then shut it again, drawing a deep, shaky breath and dropping his head, his elbows on his knees. “I can’t do this,” he said—muttered, really, like he didn’t even mean to say it out loud. The link throbbed, deep in Clint’s chest, aching like a bad tooth; he couldn’t stop himself from making a little, hurt sound, reaching out toward Phil like if he could only touch him he could fix it somehow. Phil looked up, and his mouth twisted as he reached back, his hand wrapping strong and hot around Clint’s.

“You were dead,” he said, his voice catching on the words. “You were so c-cold, and the blood—Clint, you were _dead._ ”

“Not exactly,” Clint said, as gentle as he could make it. “Not… not _entirely._ ”

“If you tell me you were only mostly dead, I’m going to scream,” Phil said, and Clint could feel how much he meant it, how thin Phil’s composure was spread, like a skin of ice over a wild and rushing river. He wished there was some way to make all this easier, but he’d actually never had this conversation before. Nat and Fury had both already known what he was when he met them, and the few other people since who’d found out hadn’t exactly stuck around to talk about the details afterward.

“Did… what did Fury tell you?”

Phil snorted, then winced, touching his swollen cheek gingerly with his free hand. “Precious little,” he said. “He—they took you away, they wouldn’t let me come, they said—classified. Nick said he’d read me in later.”

Clint sighed. So much for hoping Fury’d made this easy for him.

“So, um, I’ve never actually told this to anyone before,” he said.”Fury… found out himself, most of it, and Nat… she has, ah, firsthand experience. So I’m sorry if I fuck it up, okay? You have to tell me if I’m, if I’m not making any sense or whatever.” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry despite the fluids they’d been giving him. “So. I.” His heart was pounding, stupidly and pointlessly, a habit his body had never quite lost. “A long time ago, I got… captured,” he said. He stared at their hands, lying clasped together on the pale blue blanket. “They, ah. They did… something. To me.” Phil had tried so hard to stop the bleeding, even after he must have known it was hopeless. Clint wondered if he’d noticed how wrong Clint’s blood was, thicker and darker than it should be. Clint kept talking, trying not to pay attention to what Phil was feeling. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. “I’m not…” _human._ “Normal. Anymore. I got, ah. I heal real fast, and I can heal from stuff most people couldn’t.”

Phil raised an eyebrow at him. Even through the bruising on his face, Clint could clearly read the unspoken commentary on his current state of sitting up and talking and not having dozens of holes in all his most important organs. 

“Okay, yeah, I guess that one was obvious.” He cleared his throat. “There’s other shit, too, besides the healing stuff. Senses. Strength, speed, that kind of thing, and… other things, and some of it’s pretty fucked up, but.” 

Phil stroked his hand, just a little, running his thumb feather-light over the skin. Clint focused on that little point of contact and pressed on. “So yeah, the healing, that’s how I didn’t…” he couldn’t say he hadn’t died. He’d died, just a few countries and centuries over from Budapest. “That’s how I recovered.” 

Phil’s hand had clenched around Clint’s despite how battered his fingers were, holding on so tight Clint thought a normal person would have bruised by now. Even the link had gone still, like all of Phil right down to the core was just… waiting. 

“I’m sorry,” Clint blurted, his throat choked and aching. “I should have told you, I know, but. I just wanted. You treated me like a normal person, you always—I just, I was selfish, I didn’t want to lose that, I didn’t think it would matter, that it could hurt you. But you—they could have killed you, while you were—and it would have been my fault.” 

Phil was so quiet, in the room and in Clint’s mind. He’d had some of Clint’s blood; they were tied together now. Clint could step into that stream and follow it back to the source, peel back the quiet and _know._ He’d never done it before—he’d never had anything like this, never even been tempted—but sometimes he just knew that he could do things, some kind of monstrous instinct kicking in. He went tense all over with the effort of holding back, the barely-knit flesh on his torso screaming protests. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered again. “I know it don’t make it right. But I didn’t mean it to hurt you. The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.” 

Things were quiet, for a long moment. The blood link had been there for less than an hour of Clint’s conscious memory, and already he felt like he might scream if Phil didn’t say something or feel something or somehow break the suspense so Clint could stop waiting for everything to come crashing down.

“I’ll understand,” Clint said, his voice scraping like sandpaper on the way out of his throat, “if. If this means you don’t want to, to be around me. Anymore. I won’t—I won’t be mad.” He swallowed hard. “I know I’m not—”

“Stop,” Phil said, sharp and cutting, and the link suddenly swelled with denial, so much so fast that Clint fell silent with a little gasp. He looked up, finally, and then he couldn’t look away again, not as long as Phil was staring at him like that, conviction blazing in his eyes and something vast and hot and eager roiling down the link.

Clint didn’t need to breathe, but somehow he was still breathless. “Phil?” 

“Don’t talk about yourself that way,” Phil said. “You don’t—Clint, in what universe would I ever be angry that you _hadn’t died?_ I lived a nightmare and now you’re telling me it didn’t happen, and it—it might not—” He broke off, his expression bewildered, but he didn’t let go of Clint’s hand. “If you could heal from that,” he said slowly, “what _else_ are you safe from?”

“Um, almost anything?” Clint said. “I mean, not _everything,_ not if someone, like, cut off my head or I got totally blown up or whatever, and it’s not—I still get hurt, still have to recover. But most stuff, I can come back from eventually.”

Phil closed his eyes, a shudder moving through him, and Clint would have thought he was horrified if it weren’t for the thick tide of _relief_ beating through the link. Phil touched his other hand to his lips, and Clint wondered if he was remembering the feeling of Clint’s going slowly cold against them.

“Thank god,” Phil murmured.

Clint couldn’t hold back a snort. “God had nothing to do with it,” he said, then waved off Phil’s horrified apology. “No, it’s cool, I understand what you mean. I just… it was real bad at first. Nobody does this to someone unless they have a reason, you know? And that reason ain’t usually a good one. I don’t…” He sighed, then made himself keep looking Phil in the eye. Phil deserved that much honesty, at least. “I don’t want to tell you everything,” he admitted. “I don’t… I don’t talk about it. I hate remembering that time. I got… fuck, you know I got issues. I didn’t ask for what happened, and I… I wouldn’t have chosen to do the things I did for… for them, while I was under their control. I know I should, I should tell you everything, you deserve to know exactly what I am—”

“I do,” Phil interrupted. He lifted their joined hands from the blanket and wrapped his other hand around Clint’s, leaning forward so that he was almost cradling them against his chest. “You don’t have to tell me your past, Clint. Whatever… whatever they did to you, whatever they _made_ you do—you aren’t there anymore. You aren’t _theirs_ anymore. I know exactly what you are, Clint Barton.” He looked so sure, he felt so sure; utter conviction shone out from him like the beam of a lighthouse, piercing the dark. For a long, dizzying moment, Clint thought of King Henry—not the real one, Clint hadn’t been nearly important enough to get close to him, but the one from the play.

_From this day to the ending of the world._

“What am I?” it was barely a whisper, but Phil heard, and he smiled, and his heart blazed in Clint’s chest.

“A superhero,” Phil said.

“I don’t deserve that,” Clint wanted to look away—it almost hurt, to see the emotion on Phil’s face and feel it at the same time—but he couldn’t. After all that Phil had endured for the sake of Clint’s secret, it was the least Clint owed him.

“Yes, you do.” Phil’s voice was quiet, but his belief was like thunder. Clint looked at him, swollen face and red eyes and the smell of Clint’s blood clinging to his hands, and in that moment somehow the old ground-in fears seemed to shake free, like silver manacles dropping away under Natasha’s fingers, the skin beneath raw and weeping but finally able to start to heal.

People had betrayed Clint before, true. People. But never Phil. 

Close to six hundred years Clint had been dead. Maybe Natasha was right when she said that was no reason to stop living.

“You kissed me,” Clint said, the words spilling out before he quite realized he’d decided to say them, and Phil’s emotions surged through him again, shock and want and something like… shame? Why?

“I’m so sorry,” Phil said, his sincerity throbbing. How had Clint ever thought Phil was hard to read? “You couldn’t say no, I should never have—”

“Do it again.”

Shock again, and want again, stronger, and that shimmering strand of hope, delicate and beautiful as soap-bubbles in the sun. “What?”

Clint took a breath, and focused on that sense of Phil inside him, visualizing it again the way it had first struck him: a lovely stream, sun-dappled and inviting. He thought of all the things about Phil he admired, all the things he—honesty, Barton, in this if not in everything—the things he _loved_ , and imagined stepping into the stream, kneeling down, letting them all wash out of him into the water. He remembered the ache of lonely years pressing on him like stone, and the cautious pain of those first wary steps toward friendship, the conviction that he should keep himself apart always warring with how much he wanted to accept each gesture Phil made. He called up the bittersweet pain of loving Phil, knowing he would lose him, and the knowledge he’d only just fully accepted, that it was too late for Clint to avoid that pain, but not too late to let himself have the joy that might come before it. He pushed it all into the water, willing it to go back to the source and give Phil the gift of Clint’s heart, some small recompense for Clint having inadvertently gained a window into his.

Phil gasped, a soft and broken sound, and his eyes welled with tears. “Is that… is that you?”

Clint nodded, and gave the water the way he had felt, slipping into the soft dark with Phil’s blood and tears and love cushioning him on the way down; _safety, love, rest, home_. “Kiss me again.” He tugged a little at their entwined hands.

Phil stood up, moving next to the head of Clint’s bed. Propped up the way he was, his head was just a little lower than Phil’s shoulder. Phil looked down, meeting Clint’s eyes for a long moment, like he was checking in, making sure that Clint was sure. Clint looked back, happy to just lie there for a while; turns out it was a lot easier to sit through one of Phil’s long, searching looks if you were getting a full 3D surround sound mix of Phil’s want and care and excitement and disbelief along with it. It felt amazing, intoxicating; it was like something from a story, where your eyes are opened and you can suddenly see hidden wonders all around you.

Clint smiled up at Phil’s dear, battered face, trying to radiate certainty down their link. “Please?” 

Phil’s eyes slid shut. He took a deep breath, his grip tightening on Clint’s hand, and then he relaxed, and leaned down the short distance to meet him.

It started out gentle, light brushes of their lips together, but Clint wanted more. He pushed up off the pillow a little, trying to get more pressure, but had to sink back down with a muttered curse; he’d forgotten how sore he still was. Phil tried to pull back, a wave of worry coming through the link.

“No, stop, come back,” Clint said, possibly sounding a little petulant. It had been a long time for him, okay, and he was usually a really patient guy but for crying out loud, he was only human.

Well. Ex-human. Sort of human? Whatever. The point was that he’d been nursing what he’d thought was a hopeless crush on Phil for what felt like a hundred years, and now Phil wanted to kiss him—Clint could _feel_ how much Phil wanted to kiss him—but he kept stopping because of stupid things like Clint sort of re-dying for a while and Clint getting a little too ambitious for his still-healing stomach muscles.

“I’m just sore,” he told Phil. “You don’t have to stop.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Phil said, his face creased with worry where it wasn’t too swollen to move much. “I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to; we can pick this up again later if you need to rest.”

“I need _you,”_ Clint said. This was probably a bad idea. There was a reason he’d given up on relationships; sure, people were less likely to try to burn you at the stake nowadays, but it was also a lot riskier to let anyone know. Rasputin was far from the last person who’d be interested in putting Clint in a hole somewhere and using him as a lab rat until they eventually hit on something he couldn’t come back from. Phil would never do anything like that, Clint knew, but just because he wouldn’t turn Clint over to be drained dry didn’t mean he’d be happy to take a dead thing as a lover.

But Phil kept looking at him with his heart in his eyes and broadcasting feelings that Clint had long ago thought he’d never have directed at him again. It was hard not to give in to hope when he could tell so plainly that Phil wanted him, cared for him, maybe even loved him. When Clint’s death had hurt him so that the echo of that pain was still lurking in his eyes. When his hand trembled as Clint pulled it up to kiss.

He’d taken the healing factor idea really well. He hadn’t seemed put off by Clint’s vague explanations and seemed willing to accept that Clint didn’t want to get into much about their origins. Captain America was a hero of Phil’s, after all, so he was kind of primed to think of that sort of thing in a positive light. Maybe… maybe if Clint could relax his guard a little about the things Phil already knew, it would be easier to avoid slipping up with the things he didn’t? Phil likely wouldn’t jump to “vampire” when he dealt with “failed super-soldier experiment” so often in his day job. Not to mention a lot of what people thought they knew about vampires was bullshit; Clint’s eyes were a bit sensitive to bright light but it didn’t kill him, he liked garlic just fine, and he’d kept going to church for a couple centuries after his turning; it had been necessary a lot of the time if he wanted to blend in to community life.

Anyway, if things went _really_ bad, there was always Omega Protocol.

Maybe he’d been wrong before. Maybe he could have this, if he was careful.

“Here, how about this,” he said, and very carefully scooted over on the bed until he was pressed against the railing on the far side, hiding his wince at the movement. He let go of Phil’s hand and patted the space beside him. “C’mere. That way neither of us has to move around too much.” Phil looked hesitant, though Clint could feel how much he wanted to say yes.

He looked up at Phil, not bothering to hide how much he wanted to have Phil next to him. “Please?”

“If it hurts you, we stop until you’re better,” Phil said. His tone was firm, but the excitement he was broadcasting took away a lot of the impact. 

“Awesome,” Clint said happily. He raised his arm invitingly, and had to stop himself from making a not-quite-human-enough growl of satisfaction when Phil gingerly fit himself into the free slice of mattress, letting Clint nudge him into place until his head was pillowed on Clint’s shoulder and his body was a flush against his side.

“Mmm, you’re so warm,” Clint said. “It’s chilly in here.” 

“I can get you more blankets.”

“Nah, I like this better.” He squeezed Phil a little. He could feel Phil’s breath against the skin of his throat, and honestly it was a really good thing Clint was still working on replenishing his blood volume, because otherwise he would have been pitching a pretty obvious tent in the blankets and that just really wasn’t appropriate for a first date. 

He turned his head to nuzzle softly at Phil’s hairline. Phil still smelled like blood and sweat and disinfectant, but that was all on the surface. Underneath, he smelled like Phil—like _happy_ Phil, even, which was like ten times better than normal. “You smell really good.”

“I doubt that.” The neck of Clint’s gown had gotten pulled to the side when he moved, and Phil turned his head and kissed the bare skin on Clint’s shoulder. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Hey, I’m allowed to have preferences,” Clint said. The entire rest of him was jealous of his shoulder. “I like what I like.”

“Lucky for me, then,” Phil said. “Hopefully your preferences won’t be too offended when I shower.”

He was putting up a good front, the dry tone he always used when he was being a smartass, but it took on a whole different flavor now that Clint could feel his emotions squirming in happiness like a puppy getting pets.

How was it even possible for him to keep getting more adorable?

“My preferences want to kiss you some more,” he told Phil, at least 50% because he wanted to feel and smell Phil radiating his approval of the idea.

Phil raised a hand to cup Clint’s cheek, tilting his head a little. “Don’t move this time,” he said. “Let me do the moving.”

Clint nodded. Phil’s eyes were bright and determined, and Clint couldn’t look away from them. It was a little like being enthralled, except it was the opposite of that. Like being enthralled to do something you really wanted to do anyway, so instead of fighting against the chains of someone else’s will you were cradled in their embrace, being carried safe and warm to somewhere wonderful.

Phil propped himself up on one elbow and leaned down, brushing tiny kisses over the bridge of Clint’s nose and the slope of his cheek before returning to his mouth. The bruised side of Phil’s face was radiating heat, but as long as Phil was enjoying himself—and Clint knew for a fact he was, thank you accidental vampire empathy—Clint didn’t feel bad that he found the sensation kind of pleasant.

Clint focused on the sense of Phil inside his veins. Somehow, even though a part of him wanted to roll over and fit himself on top of Phil and do all sorts of filthy things with him, it was easy to set that part aside; the sense of pride and purpose and care coming down the link was like a reward for letting Phil do this his own way.

Phil traced along his lip with the tip of his tongue, and Clint let his own mouth open beneath the gentle pressure, trying every trick he knew to coax Phil into deepening the kiss without moving any bits of that were still healing. It was working; Phil’s heartbeat and breathing sped up, his scent changing tone a little along with them. It somehow made him smell even better, enough that Clint wondered half-seriously whether Phil might have some kind of metahuman powers of his own to make him smell _so good_. 

Clint sucked at Phil’s bottom lip a bit, enjoying the way Phil shivered. Encouraged, he kept going, varying the pressure to try to see what Phil liked best, judging by the way he sounded and smelled and tasted and the way the current of good feelings ebbed and flowed. Since he was staying still, he didn’t have to worry about accidentally squeezing too tight; he could just let himself get a little lost in the experience. Not _too_ lost—his fangs were definitely not invited to this party—but more than he’d been in far too many years too count.

He was so absorbed that when something changed and the delicious taste of Phil’s kiss got suddenly, impossibly better, he didn’t even realize at first that he was tasting blood. It was only a few seconds; Clint was suckling lazily on Phil’s lip, all right with his world, when the itchy ache of his fangs preparing to drop jolted him out of his reverie.

“Shit!” he said, pushing back into the pillows to put a little distance between their mouths. “Shit, sorry, hang on a minute.”

“Are you okay?” Phil looked down at him, a worried crease in his forehead and a bead of fresh blood welling from the newly-reopened split in his lip.

“I’m fine,” Clint said, trying not to open his mouth too wide just in case his fangs got unruly. “Just, you’re bleeding. Guess I got a little overenthusiastic. I’m sorry.”

“Huh,” Phil said. He touched his lip and looked at the red smear on his fingertip. “Guess so. I hadn’t noticed.” He licked the rest of the blood off his lip; Clint had never previously thought that was one of his kinks, but now it totally was. “Sorry.” He sighed, pulling back a little. “Kind of a mood kill. Though I guess since we just did the post-fluid exposure protocol from the CPR, at least we don’t have to do the tests again?”

“I’m not worried about you getting me sick, Phil,” Clint said. “I don’t think it’s actually even possible. They did some tests, apparently my immune system’s like all juiced up too. I haven’t even caught a cold since before I—“ he caught himself before he could say _died_. “Um, since _before_. You know.” He swallowed hard, hoping that clearing the taste a little would help him keep everything decent in the tooth department. “I’m just worried about you.”

“What for?” Phil cocked his head a little, a look that always meant his attention was sparked, and Clint wanted to kiss him so much it was nearly physically painful to stay where he was. “I mean, you aren’t bleeding internally anymore, so even if you could transmit something without being symptomatic it wouldn’t be an issue right now. I mean, I understand it’s unhygienic, but it didn’t sound like that was what you meant.”

“It’s…” for about a microsecond Clint actually considered just up and telling Phil the whole truth, just because this cover story was getting weirder by the minute. He sighed. “It’s… the changes. What they did, the ways I’m… different,” he said, picking his way slowly through the sentence. “I know this sounds like a bad movie, but I can get… attuned to someone, if I—“ don’t say “drink their blood,” Barton—“exchange bodily fluids with them.” Was that worse? Somehow that maybe sounded worse.

“Attuned how, exactly?” Phil’s voice was level, his getting-intel voice.

Clint focused on the link and pushed hard on it, trying to focus on just the basics: Phil was awesome and amazing and Clint never ever wanted to hurt him. “Like that.”

Phil’s eyes slid shut and he bit his lip, making it seep a little more blood, because the universe personally hated Clint and wanted to torture him. “Empathically?”

“I guess that’s as good a word as any,” Clint said. “I don’t really know how it works, just I can sort of feel you. Like, your feelings I mean, not your thoughts or anything like that. I’m sorry, I know it’s an invasion of your privacy, but in my defense I was mostly unconscious at the time and also thought I might be gonna actually die, so. But I think it should wear off, as long as we’re careful, you know, with the… fluids.”

Phil looked at him for a long time, his Thinking Face somehow mixing with what Clint had recently identified as his Arousal Face and becoming some entirely new kind of expression that managed to somehow be even hotter than either of the others. Clint hoped that once they actually got around to sex—assuming Phil wanted to, of course—he’d get a bit desensitized to the many flavors of Phil Hotness, because otherwise things were going to get a little awkward during planning meetings. And mission downtime. And, well, mission uptime. Just… anytime Phil was nearby.

“You have this with Natasha, don’t you,” Phil said, and Clint forgot all about the potential for an untoward fang slip as his jaw dropped in surprise.

“How the hell could you possibly know that?” he blurted. “I mean, um, not exactly? But sort of, yes. And no. It’s different with her, I can sort of tell where she is and if she’s okay but I don’t get all the, you know. Feelings.” He was starting to worry that he was a lot worse at keeping secrets than he thought he was. He wondered if maybe he should take some remedial webinars or something. Even apart from the whole vampire thing, he did have a security clearance; keeping secrets was kind of key to the whole secret agent deal.

“Don’t worry, it’s only obvious to me because I spend so much time with you,” Phil said, and either he was getting really good at reading the link or Clint just had a super obvious look on his face. “You just… you each always know when the other is hurt, and there have been a few times on missions where you found her exact location so fast I wondered if you had a super nose as well as great eyes. Which, well, I guess you have that, too, apparently, but it wouldn’t explain how you knew we needed to abort our infiltration and go help Natasha with the guards that time in Barcelona.”

“Oh,” Clint said. “Well, when you put it that way it does sound kind of obvious.” He knew those things, after all; he and Natasha used to be careful like that. They still were, most of the time, but at some point they’d apparently just both decided that Phil was trustworthy enough that they didn’t need to go out of their way to hide from him. 

Which was true, of course. But still. 

“Does it… bother you?” Phil asked. “Not with Natasha, of course. That’s none of my business either way. But with me. If this… attunement… is uncomfortable or intrusive for you—“

“No, it’s—“ Clint stopped himself before he could say _great_ or _hot_ or _the safest I’ve felt since the fifteenth century_. “Fine,” he finished, then realized it wasn’t a very flattering description of someone’s inmost emotions. “I mean, it’s nice. It—you—it feels nice. But, I mean, I’m used to all my weirdness. I know you never signed up to, like, give me a premium subscription to the How Phil Feels Network.”

“Well, no, seeing as how I didn’t know it was possible before about ten minutes ago,” Phil said. “But I probably would have, if you’d asked me. Assuming it doesn’t hurt you somehow.”

“Wait,” Clint said. “What? I mean, why? I’d have thought you were the last guy to want someone else up in your business like that.” 

Phil snorted, then winced a little, touching the side of his face gingerly. “You would think that,” he said. “Most people would think that. It’s even true, most of the time. Being too free with personal information can get you into a lot of trouble in our line of work.” 

Clint nodded. That was actually one of the things he’d liked best about working for SHIELD; it was a lot easier to keep secrets if everyone just understood that field personnel had to maintain a certain level of professional caution with information.

“Unfortunately, as it turns out, most people don’t want to date someone who’s really good at not talking about himself,” Phil said. He shrugged, but the tenor of his feelings in the link belied the casual gesture, going wistful and a little achy. “My lack of emotional openness has been something of a recurring theme in most of my notable breakups. I do try to make an effort, but… it’s hard to switch modes like that. Not to mention I often go on lengthy business trips at short notice and occasionally come back from them on fluid exposure protocol. I’ve not been the best romantic prospect, historically.”

“You’ve just been dating the wrong people,” Clint said. “If they couldn’t see that you were awesome, that’s _their_ problem.”

Phil smiled, pleasure radiating down the link like sunshine sparkling on the surface of the water. “I appreciate it,” he said. “Nonetheless, I have to admit that the idea of being able to share my feelings with a partner without actually having to talk about them has undeniable appeal.”

“You’d probably still have to talk a little,” Clint said. “I mean, I could feel if you were pissed off or something, but I wouldn’t know _why_ unless you told me. But—wait.” He thought about what Phil had said again. “You said, um, a partner. Did you mean, like, at work, or hypothetically, or what?”

Clint was very good at detecting blood flow patterns, which is how he knew that Phil was actually blushing despite the bruising on his face that hid the telltale wash of color. 

“I may have been getting ahead of myself a little,” Phil said. “But…” he paused, like he was psyching himself up for something, and the link felt kind of hopeful and kind of embarrassed and kind of afraid. “I’m not asking you to make any kind of commitment right now,” he said. “But I thought you were amazing long before I found out you had superpowers, and, well, I think it’s pretty clear by now that I’m attracted to you. If this—“ he gestured between them, “was mostly adrenaline from the close call, I’d be disappointed but I wouldn’t let it hurt our friendship. But… if you _were_ interested in exploring the possibility of more—“

“I’m extremely interested in that,” Clint said, doing his best to shove his interest down the link so Phil would know he meant it. “Please. I want that. I mean, I do if you do. But it, ah, it _feels_ like you do.”

“Very much,” Phil said quietly. Clint was so distracted by the flood of the link practically yelling YES YES YES in his brain that he hardly even heard him.

“Okay, then,” Clint said. “Um, I’ve never dated anyone who knew, before. So, fair warning, I may try to bullshit you about, you know, my whole deal, before I remember that it’s okay not to. I’ll work on it. But try not to take it personal?”

“Of course,” Phil said. “And I’ll try to remember to tell you things with words and not depend too much on the… what do you call it? Attunement? Empathic bond?” 

“Not that, that makes us sound like a teen romance novel,” Clint said. “Um, I don’t really talk about it much, but I tend to think of it as a link.”

“Like a comlink from Star Wars,” Phil said, because he was a gigantic, adorable nerd. “I like it.”

“I like _you,_ ” Clint said. “Especially now that you’re my boyfriend and all.”

“Suddenly I feel like I’m hoping you’ll let me cop a feel in the car after prom,” Phil said.

Clint grinned at him. The link between them was practically fizzy with happiness, like instead of water the stream was full of champagne. “That can be arranged,” he said. “Once we’re both sprung from Medical, you might even get lucky.”

Phil rubbed his thumb gently over Clint’s cheek. “I already have.”

Really, it was just not fair, him saying things like that and filling the link up with so many feelings. Not when they were both injured and in a hospital bed and Clint was still hooked up to monitors and IVs and shit and it wouldn’t be a good idea to see how fast two people could get naked if one of them had a possibly-broken face and the other was a vampire who’d been mostly dead all day. Fortunately, before Clint had time to do anything too foolhardy, Phil turned to look at the door, a puzzled look on his face.

“Was that… I thought I heard Natasha,” he said.

Oh, right. That. 

Clint checked, and sure enough, he could feel her coming closer.

“So, about that,” he said. “I think maybe you and Nat are getting, like, echoes of each other? She said she could feel you coming, earlier. I hope that’s okay.”

“Huh. That could be really useful in the field.” 

Clint chuckled. “That’s pretty much exactly what she said.”

“Assuming I can learn to interpret it properly.” Phil shut his eyes, brow furrowed in concentration, until his face cleared and he looked at Clint, broadcasting excitement. “I think I’ve got it. She’ll be here soon, I think she just got off the elevator.” 

That actually matched pretty well what Clint was feeling. They both turned to look at the door, which opened after about eight seconds, Natasha pushing it open with her hip, hands full of takeout bags.

“Cool,” Phil said, but he felt about equal parts triumphant and gleeful. Clint was never going to get over how understated Phil was when you compared what he said to what he was actually feeling. It made Clint feel strangely proprietary, like Phil’s secrets were some kind of, like, ancient treasure passed down through millennia that Clint had a sacred duty to guard.

Also Clint had some ideas about the erotic potential of all that intensity kept firmly controlled all the time.

“You work fast,” Natasha said.

“You know it,” Clint said smugly.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” She grinned at them, and Phil ducked his head a little, smiling softly in a way that made Clint want to roll over on top of him and kiss it to see if it tasted as sweet as it looked. 

“I hope that by this point in my life, I’ve learned not to squander opportunities,” he said. The link was warm with happiness and a kind of shy awe. Clint gave him a little squeeze, enjoying how much he could feel Phil liking it.

He deliberately steered his thoughts away from wondering what it would be like when they finally made their way to somewhere with more privacy and a bigger bed, because Nat wasn’t there to watch him and Phil neck.

So to speak.

“Maybe the both of you can get each other to take your full medical leave,” she said, and there was a tiny twinge of something in her voice that told him that she’d been really worried.

“Nat, I’m fine,” Clint said, more serious. “I’m a tough old bastard, you know that.” 

“Better than anyone alive,” she agreed, and he could see the shadows in her eyes. 

He felt a sudden pang that had Phil glancing over at him, concerned. He’d gotten pretty good at compartmentalization over the centuries, the knack of keeping the memories that belonged to the here and now at the forefront, but when he looked at Nat it was like he was looking back in time. Natasha in the middle of a gang of men, fighting for her life and looking up at him with shattering relief when the last one dropped with an arrow in his throat. Natasha in tall patent leather boots and a color-blocked minidress, sliding across the table from him in a London cafe, one of their periodic check-ins. Natasha still looking like a teenager, in a puffy skirt and saddle shoes, calling him Uncle Frank. Natasha in Paris, wearing a school uniform with her hair in pigtails, peering into shop windows and teasing him to buy her things until he actually called her bluff and bought an exceptionally ugly stuffed piglet. (She’d named it François and taken it with her everywhere.)

Natasha in Russia, scrawny and half feral, the two of them wearing the least bloody clothes they’d been able to salvage off the guards and desperately trying to avoid attention. Posing as father and daughter on the train, trying to look like they were huddling in shawls to get warm and not to hide their faces. Natasha tucking Clint into the corner and sitting between him and the rest of the compartment like a tiny Sphinx, ignoring the way every shadow made him flinch and cower. Finally stumbling off the train, renting a room and barricading themselves inside, still hearing pursuit in every creak of the floorboards and too terrified to sleep. Shivering on the hearth while their wet clothes dried, and Natasha tipping up her chin, her expression half defiance and half longing as she told him it was better if they kept up the act all the time, so they’d remember not to slip up. The way she’d caught her breath when he’d smoothed a shaky hand over her bright hair and told her that sounded like a good plan, but he wouldn’t have minded even if it wasn’t. The tiny, tremulous smile she’d given him when he’d asked if she was ready to leave the inn and she’d said, “Yes, Papa.”

She stood there at the foot of his hospital bed, grown up and badass and amazing, and he could almost feel the ghostly echo of a tiny warm hand slipping into his.

“Aw, Nat,” he said, “C’mere.” He held out the arm on the opposite side from Phil, and she set the food bags down on the seat of Phil’s abandoned chair and went around the bed to hold it. He rested his thumb over her pulse, stroking gently. 

He used to have nightmares, when they first got out. He’d dream of waking up, going over to her little cot, pulling back the blanket and seeing her white and still, throat torn, then looking down to see her blood on his hands, splashed down his front. After the second time he woke her in the middle of the night, sick and shaking and desperate to know she was alive, she’d given him a long look, sharp-eyed and strange on her thin little face, and sighed. “Go back to bed, Papa,” she’d said, and he’d obeyed, because she’d already figured out that he’d do pretty much anything she asked if she called him that while she did it. He’d been preparing himself to stay awake the rest of the night, lying still and listening to her breathe, when she’d poked him in the belly. “Move over,” she’d told him, and then she’d settled herself at his side and reached for his hand. 

“Maybe if you can feel I’m still here, we’ll both be able to get some rest,” she’d said. Her tone was cross, but when he’d let his thumb rest over her pulse, she’d reached over with her other hand and patted blindly at his arm. “There now,” she’d said. “I’m right here. Go back to sleep.” And he had, and he didn’t remember any further dreams, just the foggy sensation of startling awake in dread before registering the unfamiliar warmth at his side and the pulse of life under his fingers.

“You cut it really close.”

“I’m sorry, _paučók_ ,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. It’d been a long time since he’d used that pet name for her, but screw it; no matter how old she got or how badass she was, he would never forget the little spider who had pulled him out of the dark with a pilfered knife and sheer force of will.

He smiled at her, gentle and a little sheepish. “What can I say, I’m feeling sentimental.” On his other side, he could feel Phil nearly vibrating with curiosity, but doing his best not to intrude on their moment. He sent him a happy little pulse of gratitude.

“You’re always sentimental,” she said, and bent down to kiss his forehead. “I usually don’t hold it against you.” She turned a little, including Phil in her smile. “I’m sure you’ll both be even worse from now on. You’re lucky I like you both.”

“I know,” Phil said, and Clint was a little startled at how much he really meant it; not that he hadn’t thought Phil and Nat liked each other, they obviously did, it just… like so many things he was learning about, Phil’s admiration and affection for her was a lot deeper than his mostly-calm exterior let on.

Clint looked between them, feeling joy rise up in his chest. Despite the pain and the risk and how frightened they’d all been, everything had turned out okay. He was here, with the two people he loved most in the world on either side of him, connected to him deep in the blood where he could feel that they were there, that they were all right. He sighed a little, not deeply enough to twinge his still-healing midsection, and let himself strum over the twin lines of connection. They both turned to look at him, Phil’s head tilting inquiringly and Nat with an arched eyebrow, and he couldn’t hold back a rusty little chuckle. “Sorry,” he said. “Just. It’s really good to have you both here.”

Phil smiled at him, his eyes soft, and sent a pulse of warmth over the link, just as Nat shook her head a little and tugged on hers. Different sensations, but both so good to feel.

Nat sighed, ruffling his hair. “We aren’t the ones who let ourselves get shot,” she said. “Do not do that again.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Clint protested. “But I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” She squeezed his hand and let go. “I got you a smoothie. Drink it and concentrate on healing.”

Clint pouted a little. “You two aren’t having smoothies.” He could smell Thai food.

“We two aren’t currently regenerating our intestines,” Nat said. She pushed a styrofoam cup into his hand. It smelled strongly of citrus, probably enough that a normal nose wouldn’t get anything else, but Clint could also smell blood. He glanced at the side of the cup and had to bite back a laugh when he saw “Blood Orange” scrawled on the side in Sharpie. Nat saw the look and grinned at him, a dimple flashing in her cheek.

He took a sip, obediently, and smiled at her around the straw. Over the years, she’d become an expert at slipping him blood disguised in more innocuous things; smoothies, tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, even gazpacho. Anything vaguely liquid and reddish in color. The combinations weren’t always delicious, but it did the trick, especially since they only had to resort to those kinds of strategies when Clint wasn’t well enough to take care of things himself. Clint didn’t know how it worked—Duquesne hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about that sort of thing—but the blood had to be from a living source or it didn’t do anything for him. The advent of blood donation had been the best development since indoor plumbing as far as Clint was concerned; donated blood was still okay for him even when it was too old for transfusing into people, and you could always find someone willing to take a little cash in exchange for not noticing when a bunch of expired bags ended up vanishing on the way to medical waste disposal. Clint had a complicated relationship with feeding, and everything was just easier when he could do it nice and tidy with no chance for accidents. 

“Thanks,” he told Nat, slurping again at his smoothie while she doled out curry and chicken satay for herself and Phil. “Just what I needed.” Even cold, he could feel the tingle of his system doing… whatever it did to the blood he consumed to turn it into energy and tissue.

Being a vampire was really weird sometimes. He’d mostly learned to just roll with it.


	3. On Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Phil, it’s your turn on Hawkeye-rehab duty. Just keep him in bed for the duration; I’m sure you won’t have any trouble with that.” 
> 
> “Of course,” Phil said, though his ears went pink and the link went hot with the feelings Clint was starting to learn meant something like “I want to do unspeakably filthy things to you but I mustn’t until you’re fully recovered”.
> 
> Phil felt like that a lot. Clint was really into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd we're done! Thank you for joining me for this tale of Clint Barton, Soft Vampire. The E rating comes into play at last. If you are interested in knowing when the eventual sequel and/or prequel go up, I've put this fic in a series so that you can subscribe to it. Thanks much for reading!

After two days and several more smoothies, Clint was pronounced ready to go home, as long as someone would be there to help him if he had any sort of relapse. Normally, Natasha stayed with him when he needed it, but as she was sweeping the room to get the last of their stuff, Phil cleared his throat, radiating nerves down the link.

“What’s up?” Clint asked him, concerned.

“I, ah,” Phil said, which was so unlike him Nat stopped what she was doing to look over at him, too. “That is. If you wanted. You could come home with me? Or I could stay with you? To help you, I mean.”

Clint opened his mouth to assure Phil he didn’t have to; usually these recuperation periods involved a lot of sleeping in completely dark rooms and cleaning out most of his blood stash. Neither of those were really how he wanted Phil to see him, especially now that they had done so much really promising kissing that Clint sincerely hoped they would be able to escalate once he was out of Medical. He stopped himself from answering, though, because under the nerves he could feel Phil really really wanting to do it, to take care of Clint and make sure he was okay, and Clint just didn’t have the heart to say no to the blood link version of puppy dog eyes.

He looked at Nat, wishing for a moment that they had an empathic link too so that he could radiate _pretty please_ to her with something other than his face.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes at him with an indulgent smile. “Phil, it’s your turn on Hawkeye-rehab duty. Just keep him in bed for the duration; I’m sure you won’t have any trouble with that.” 

“Of course,” Phil said, though his ears went pink and the link went hot with the feelings Clint was starting to learn meant something like “I want to do unspeakably filthy things to you but I mustn’t until you’re fully recovered”.

Phil felt like that a lot. Clint was really into it.

It always took longer to get out of Medical than it seemed like it should, but finally Clint extracted himself and they made their way downstairs, Phil insisting on carrying the overnight bag Nat had brought by and the plastic bag that contained all the care instructions Clint was going to mostly ignore and the sugar pills they gave him to take as part of his cover. 

Clint wasn’t sure what his doctors thought was really going on with him, physically speaking; he didn’t actually need to know. That was Fury’s to handle. Nat had flipped out, when she’d first come in and realized that Clint was just letting Fury make those arrangements without looking over his shoulder the whole time, but eventually she’d understood. If Fury wanted to hurt Clint, he’d had plenty of chances to do it; he wouldn’t need shenanigans with Medical when there were a million ways for a field agent to die. Plus, Fury was kind of terrifyingly protective, once you leaned to read him. Like if a Green Beret was a kindergarten teacher. After so many years working alone, it was honestly restful for Clint not to have to worry much over the details.

Over the years they’d worked out a system, Fury and Nat tag-teaming any time Clint was hurt. Clint had a designated team who knew enough to help deal with his injuries (essentially, to stick him back together as needed and keep him out of sight while Nat (or sometimes Fury) smuggled him blood bags so he could heal properly) and cover up the fact that said injuries never lasted as long as they should have. 

He wondered whether they’d be able to read Phil in a little bit on the protocol with Medical, now. Not the blood part, but the rest of it. That would be nice; he’d always hated feeling like they were shutting Phil out, always felt guilty at the sad little furrow on his forehead when he was finally let in to see Clint with his set dressing of saline IVs and monitors showing a pre-programmed loop.

“I got us a driver,” Phil told him, shaking his thoughts back to the present. “I know you’re a lot better, but there’s no way I’m putting you on a train right now.”

Clint smiled at him, bumping their shoulders together affectionately. “Thanks,” he said. He wasn’t going to turn it down, even if Clint would have been fine on the subway. He wondered if Phil would sit next to him in the back of the car (yes) and if he’d forget himself and hold Clint’s hand like he’d been doing as much as possible since they’d come to their understanding (no, but he did sit close enough that their legs touched and rested his hand on Clint’s thigh, which was just as good.)

Clint was living in an old apartment building in Bed-Stuy that he had bought through a shell company after the war. He didn’t like to dwell too much on it—there was an old, tough part of him that got really weirded out at the thought of being a landlord—but the rents paid for the upkeep of the building, and the sort of renovations you needed as a vampire were kind of hard to do if you had to worry about a security deposit. He assuaged his conscience by making sure that the building was safe and well-maintained and the rents affordable.

Clint’s official address was a corner apartment on the first floor, and that was where he spent most of his time. However, the units directly above (leased to one of Nat’s cover identities) and below (technically on the plans as portions of the boiler room and storage facilities and only accessible through a secret door) were connected to the apartment through various secret doors and hatches that he and Nat had honestly had a blast designing. Neither of them could ever feel quite comfortable living somewhere without any hidden escape routes.

Anyway, none of his neighbors knew the truth about Clint owning the building except for his super, Basil, who Natasha had stolen from the mob or something back in the nineties and had essentially left on Clint’s doorstep with a bow around his neck. Basil had to have realized by now that something was up with his employer, but he was doggedly loyal and pretended not to notice that neither Clint nor Nat had changed much since they’d met, even while treating them both generally like he was the eccentric great-uncle in a children’s book and they’d been sent to live with him during the Blitz. Basil hit like a truck—as one very unfortunate would-be home invader had learned, soon after his installation in the super’s apartment—had an improbably small cat named Piroshki that liked to ride around on his shoulder, and made artisanal spreads as a hobby. Everyone in the building basically adored him.

Basil was in the lobby as they entered the building, up on a somewhat alarmingly rickety stepladder changing a bulb.

“Hey, B-man,” Clint said, steering clear of the ladder. “How’s it going?”

Basil looked down at them from the ladder, frowning behind his mustache. “Natalia came by the other day, said you were in hospital again. You gotta be more careful, bro.”

“He really does,” Phil agreed. The traitor.

“Basil, this is Phil,” Clint said. “Phil, Basil. He keeps things running around here.” 

Basil snorted. “I do my best, bro,” he said, climbing ponderously down the ladder and sticking out a meaty hand. “Good to meet you. This one needs more friends, you’d think he’s a monk, just him and little Natalia in and out all the time.”

Clint sent Phil a little zing of the decidedly non-monk-like feelings he was currently having, and was delighted to see the tips of his ears go pink while he was shaking Basil’s hand.

“I hope you’ll be seeing me around more in future,” Phil said.

“Oh, count on it,” Clint added, then slung an arm around Phil’s shoulders (which hardly even hurt at all anymore, hooray!) and tugged him down the hall toward his door. “See you!”

“I’ll bring you soup later,” Basil called after him. “Wear pants, bro.”

“No promises!” 

Clint unlocked the three locks on his front door, ran his thumb over the hidden print scanner to disarm the security system, then waved Phil in ahead of him. As much time as they’d spent together over the years, he’d never invited Phil over; actually, he’d never had anyone but Natasha and Basil over, the whole time he’d lived there. Clint hoped his place didn’t look weird or anything; sometimes his taste in home decor got a little… eclectic.

“I have to ask,” Phil said, once the door was closed behind them. “Little Natalia?”

Clint shrugged. “Well, I mean, by comparison,” he said. “Plus, they got some kind of weird Russian bonding thing going on. He’s a great cook, though. Sweet guy.” He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door. “So, the tour, such as it is; living room and kitchen here, first door on the left is my room and the first door on the right is the bathroom. The door at the end of the hall is Nat’s room.” (He always had a room for Nat in any place he lived for more than a few weeks; he’d told her she could always come home to him, and he meant it. There was also a false wall in Nat’s room hiding Clint’s emergency stash and the secret exit to the basement, but Clint had no intention of ever getting into a situation where Phil would need to know about that. He’d understand the cash, papers, and weapons, but the stock of blood bags, wood-point arrows, and silver bullets was a bit harder to explain.)

Phil blinked. “Did I know Natasha lived here?” He didn’t feel upset, Clint was happy to note, just curious.

“She doesn’t, really,” Clint explained. “We just… oh!” He found himself grinning at Phil, who smiled back at the fizzing happiness Clint was making no attempt to hide from the link. “I can tell you now. How we met.”

Phil perked up. “I’ve always wondered,” he said. “But I didn’t want to pry.”

“After I was…” Clint waved his hand vaguely at his own body, trying to convey _given nonspecific powers through nonspecific means by nonspecific evildoers._ “Um, _changed,_ one time after I got away some other assholes caught me. The, ah, the Red Room—you know about that, right?” 

Phil nodded, his face gone a little pale under the bruising. “I—shit, Clint. I had no idea.”

“Was a secret,” Clint said simply. “Nobody else knew. Anyway, they wanted what I had, y’know. Wanted to put it in their operatives. Held me for…” _more than a decade_ “…a while. But Nat was there, and I guess she decided I was a better long-term prospect than them or something? She busted us out, helped me get away. She left everything she’d ever known for someone she’d just met, and I was pretty fucked up at the time so it’s not like I was in any shape to give a rousing recruitment speech. So, yeah, once I could think straight again, I told her that she might not have the people she knew anymore, but fuck them, they didn’t deserve her. And I sure as hell didn’t deserve her either, but she had me anyway, and she’d never be alone as long as I’m around.” He shook his head a little, smiling at the memory of her expression, skepticism warring with hope. “And everywhere I live since then, I always make sure there’s space for her, just in case she needs it. Like, a promise, you know?”

Phil stepped in close, slipping his arm around Clint’s waist and squeezing gently. “I hate that those things happened to you both,” he said, “but I’m so glad you had each other. I hope you know, the same goes for me, for both of you. You’ll never be without someone in your corner, not as long as I’m alive.”

Something in Clint’s chest ached at the deep sincerity in Phil’s voice. He wished that he really was just ordinary run-of-the-mill mad-science superpowered; eventually, even that cover story would start to give way, and he’d have to leave this life behind him. He’d always hated thinking about that, but now that he had Phil’s tender and generous heart running through him like a drug, the thought of being without it was almost too sharp to bear. 

Well. He didn’t have to bear it yet.

He pulled Phil closer to him, turning Phil’s cautious side-hug into a full embrace and resting his head on Phil’s shoulder, where the low throb of his pulse sang to him and Clint could smell pheromones and disinfectant and a little sweat. “Thank you,” he said, his voice unexpectedly catching in his throat. 

Phil leaned into him, turning his head to kiss Clint’s temple. “I’m the one who should be grateful,” he said. “I _am_ grateful, for so much. I—you—“ he broke off, shaking his head a little, and sent a surge of feelings down the link; gratitude, but also admiration, awe, and something warm and sweet and safe that Clint superstitiously didn’t name, even to himself.

Clint hugged him a little tighter. “How are you so good at that already?”

Phil chuckled. “I’m bad at _talking_ about my feelings,” he said. “This is a lot easier.”

Without thinking, Clint turned his head to kiss the nearest bit of Phil’s skin, then realized too late how close he was to Phil’s neck, close enough to sense the rush of blood through the carotid and the jugular, to feel its heat. He almost thought he could taste Phil again, the ghost of the flavor making his fangs itch. He forced himself not to jerk away but to pull back slowly, giving Phil a close-mouthed smile as Phil’s hands slid reluctantly away. He caught one of the hands on its way down and started down the hall toward his room, tugging Phil along behind him while he tried to convince all his teeth to stay right where they were.

“We can drop our stuff in my room,” he said, not turning around. “Then maybe watch some TV until supper?”

Phil looked him over, keen and assessing; it was his “are you actually field-ready, Agent, or are you trying to bullshit me?” look, and it was strangely comforting to see it while feeling the care it represented, not just for an asset but for Clint as a person. Clint tried to radiate a sense of okayness, of _still a little sore but really going to be fine_ -ness, and he saw and felt Phil relax.

“Okay,” Phil agreed.

They left their bags in Clint’s room, which was a lot neater than he remembered leaving it; apparently when Natasha had come by to pick up clothes for Clint, she’d also made his bed and corralled any stray laundry into the hamper. He wasn’t sure whether that was for his benefit or Phil’s, but he appreciated it, just the same. 

“I got the new _Dog Cops_ on the DVR,” Clint said, as they went back to the living room. “but I’m a couple episodes behind—well, I mean. You know, mission stuff.”

“Yeah.” Phil sighed. “I don’t even remember how far I got this season before I had to start doing overnights for that thing in Madripoor, and by the time I got my days and nights the right way round again, we were gearing up for Budapest.”

Clint settled on the couch, putting his socked feet up on the coffee table and tugging Phil down next to him. “Maybe we should just start from the season premiere again.”

“Yes,” Phil said, sounding maybe a little punchy. “Excellent call. That’s the sort of tactical brilliance we need more of at SHIELD. I’ll put a note in your file.”

Clint put his arm around Phil’s shoulders and tugged him gently in to lean against him. “I keep telling you, you can’t put a note in my file, Phil. You aren’t my supervisor.”

“Sure I can.” Phil nuzzled against Clint’s shoulder a little; fortunately, his bruises were mostly on the other side. (Maybe Clint did have a _little_ tactical brilliance.) “Anyone can, as long as they’ve worked with you directly on a project. It goes in the peer feedback section.”

Clint blinked. “How did I not know that?” He found the remote where it had fallen down between the arm of the couch and the seat cushion, and navigated through his too-full DVR until he found the right episode. 

“Maybe because you never actually read your email? Just a guess.” Phil’s tone was dry as dust, but the warm contentment coming over the link and his relaxed weight against Clint’s side damped the impact a lot.

“I read the important emails,” Clint said. “I got filters and shit.”

“I shudder to think. Let’s see… ‘if body includes text: arrows’…” Phil had put his feet up next to Clint’s, and was wiggling his toes to the beat of the _Dog Cops_ theme. 

Clint didn’t think he realized he was doing it, which he found impossibly charming. “I also have one for if there’s food in the breakroom,” he said gravely. “You know. Important stuff.”

Phil laughed a little. “I did wonder how you always know,” he said. “Agent Cox bet Jasper twenty bucks you’re hacking the security feeds.”

“Naw, I just make friends with all the admins,” Clint said. 

Phil nodded. “Wise man.”

“Well, apparently I’m tactically brilliant.”

Phil patted his thigh, and Clint slipped his hand under Phil’s, feeling a happy thrill when Phil interlaced their fingers and started rubbing his thumb idly across Clint’s knuckles. “Yup.”

They subsided into a comfortable silence as the episode got going. Maybe it should have felt strange, having Phil there for the first time after he’d spent so long resisting exactly that, but it didn’t; it felt _right_. Clint had a thread of Phil running through the core of him, now, spreading out and settling over, filling places that Clint had never really noticed were empty.

They were about halfway through the fourth episode when Phil tensed a little, tilting his head. Clint froze, automatically scanning for threats until he realized what Phil must be sensing and relaxed again. “It’s just Nat.”

“Oh.” Phil shut his eyes, frowning a little, then his face cleared. “Right. So it is. Sorry, I’m still getting used to that.”

“Yeah, for like the first couple weeks I always thought I was seeing something,” Clint said. “I think your brain isn’t used to the pull so it tries to stick it in with one of the other senses until it figures out some dedicated wiring.”

“We should probably do some training,” Phil said. “Once we’re off medical reserve, naturally.” He shot Clint a look that very clearly said that healing factor or no healing factor, he expected Clint to take his mandated leave without trying to weasel out of it early this time.

“Says the guy with the busted face,” Clint pointed out. He’d honestly kind of hoped that, now that they didn’t need to keep Phil in the dark about his healing, he wouldn’t have to take the full leave anymore. He always got antsy when he had to stay home with nothing to do when he felt fine.

Although. If Phil kept staying over… well. Clint wasn’t making any assumptions, but Phil _had_ been kissing him a lot since he… hadn’t re-died, and they _were_ the kind of kisses that carried the promise of, shall we say, something to do.

Maybe that leave wasn’t such a bad idea.

“It’s just a hairline fracture,” Phil said, one hand lifting to hover over his discolored cheek. “It’ll get better on its own.”

“You’re both out for at least two weeks,” Natasha said, closing the front door behind her with a nearly inaudible click and then throwing the bolts. She set two paper bags on the kitchen island; Clint could see some kind of greens and a baguette poking out of the top of one of them, like it was a grocery bag from a cartoon. He should get up and help her, he thought, but before he got farther than a slight tensing of his muscles in preparation for disentangling himself from Phil, she shot him a narrow look. “You two stay right where you are,” she said. “You’re both still healing, so enjoy this while it lasts.” She started pulling containers out of one of the bags, then opened Clint’s cabinet to find dishes. “I brought some files from Fury for you, Phil. There’s a time lock on the drive, though, so you can’t overdo it. Apparently he’s met you.”

“Baseless rumors,” Phil said lazily, relaxing back against Clint’s side.

It only took Natasha a few minutes to serve up the food. They had an assortment of dumplings, some fried sausages, sliced thick and crispy on the edges, brown bread thickly spread with butter, and big mugs of borscht, deep red and smelling deliciously earthy (and in Clint’s case, with an underlying coppery tang that told him Natasha was still not convinced Clint didn’t have some more healing to do.)

“Drink your soup,” she said, settling into her own chair with a mug of tea and giving him a pointed look. “It’s nutritious.”

Clint toasted her with his mug, then took a long swallow. He was apparently a little less recovered than he’d thought, because he could actually feel himself perking up a little as the blood hit his system. “Hits the spot,” he told her seriously, and she smiled, relaxing back into her chair. 

“Like I said, nutritious,” she said, nodding at him approvingly. She waved a forkful of sausage at the TV. “Put it back to the beginning, I like this one.” 

They ate and watched two more episodes; the soup and sausage and dumplings were followed by rich buttery cookies and cups of tea, sweetened with jam in what Natasha insisted was the only civilized way to drink it. By the time they got through the mid-season finale, Clint felt warm and full and happy and drowsy. He couldn’t tell how much of it was him and how much of it was Phil, and he didn’t really care; it was a good feeling, either way, and he was happy to just soak it in, safe in his own space with the people he loved most in the world right there being safe and happy alongside him.

“There,” Natasha said, as the closing credits rolled. “Now you’re all caught up.”

“Wait, really?” Clint said. “I thought there were more than that.”

“It’s been reruns for a couple weeks,” she said. “March Madness.”

“Oh,” Clint said. “Right. I forgot.”

Phil sighed. “I used to follow basketball,” he said. “I _like_ basketball. It just…” he waved his hand in a loose gesture that Clint took to indicate “being so busy at work that you aren’t quite sure you haven’t fallen through a time vortex into the future.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to catch up while you’re both resting.” Natasha got up and started gathering up their teacups and the last few cookies. 

Clint poked her shin with his toe as she moved in front of him. “You staying?”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That depends. How loud are you planning to be?”

Phil blushed, enough that Clint could feel the heat where his cheek rested on Clint’s shoulder; Clint wondered what he’d been thinking of. He hoped he’d get to find out before too much longer. He nudged Phil through the link, then winked when Phil looked up at him. “I don’t know about this one,” he said teasingly, “but I was mostly planning on wooing Phil with a night of uninterrupted sleep in a bed that’s actually big enough for two people.”

“Promise me nobody will wake me up to take my blood pressure and you can consider me wooed.” Phil patted Clint’s thigh, and Clint turned his head to brush a kiss over the fine hair at Phil’s temple.

Natasha ruffled Clint’s hair on her way back to the kitchen. “The two of you are exactly as bad as each other. Clint, I want you to remember this the next time you’re tempted not to believe me when I give you intel.”

“In my defense,” Clint said, “I wouldn’t exactly classify that conversation as ‘giving me intel.’”

“It was well-supported and actionable information of relevance to the situation.”

“You asked me why I hadn’t ever mentioned that I was the lost Brontë sister and told me to, and I quote, ‘get into his pantaloons already’ because you already checked and he doesn’t have any exes locked in his attic.”

“I live in an apartment,” Phil offered gravely, though his eyes—and the sense of him through the link—were sparkling with humor. “I don’t even have an attic. Or any pantaloons, technically, though I’m certainly willing to accommodate requests.”

Clint was suddenly struck with the mental image of Phil all done up in Regency style and went hot all over. “Um,” he said. There was a slight possibility that Clint might still have some old outfits in storage—he could never get used to the modern trend of throwing away perfectly functional stuff just because it wasn’t in style anymore—and he couldn’t help thinking of how Phil’s calves would look in silk stockings or the way his eyes would sparkle above a blue silk cravat. Clint could go on his knees in front of Phil, undo the buttons and open the fall-front… “I mean. Um.”

Natasha snorted, then looked closer at him and cackled in delight. “Oh my god, you have a _fetish_ ,” she said. “How did I never know this about you? This is amazing, I’m buying you a ‘Men of Austen’ pin-up calendar next Christmas.”

“That isn’t a thing,” Clint said. He was pretty sure that all the blood he’d had with dinner was now in his face. “I mean. Not that I’ve looked, I just—“ he broke off, groaning as Nat laughed even harder. “Make me stop talking now,” he said, turning his body to face Phil more squarely. “I beg of you.”

Phil was grinning—or half grinning, really, the still-swollen side of his face not moving as much, but he cupped Clint’s cheek and turned his head gently closer for a tender, close-mouthed kiss. “It’s all right,” he said, when they drew apart again. “I think it’s important to go into a relationship with an open-minded, sex-positive attitude. I promise not to kink-shame you about your pantaloon fetish. I’ll get you the _Pride and Prejudice_ box set, we can pause it on the part when Colin Firth gets out of the lake.” 

Nat erupted into a new wave of giggles, and Clint groaned dramatically. “I have the _worst family,_ ” he said, then pulled himself up short when he felt a wave of surprised joy coming over the link. He blinked at Phil. “Oh, come on, that cannot possibly be a surprise. Even before, you know—” he gestured between their faces— “you’ve been family for ages. You gotta know that.”

“I—hoped, maybe,” Phil said. “But in our line of work… things get intense, but it’s situational. You didn’t seem interested in doing much socializing outside of work; I didn’t want to presume.”

Clint felt a flash of guilt over all the times he’d pretended not to notice Phil reaching out to him, too afraid of maybe hurting Phil in the future to realize he was already hurting him in the present. “I was just worried, babe,” he said. “I’m so used to keeping my secret I think I’ve forgotten how to act like a normal person. I’m sorry it took all this to get me to tell you how important you are.”

“You don’t need to act like a ‘normal’ person,” Phil said. “You’re the farthest thing from normal, you’re _extraordinary._ And it isn’t like I was being fully honest with you earlier, either. So let’s just… let the past be past and be happy we finally got here.” The link between them pulsed with feelings, in that hurried rush that Clint thought meant that Phil was deliberately trying to push emotions to him; sincerity, awe, care, and a little bit of sheepishness that made Clint think of the look on Phil’s face when he’d said he was bad at discussing his feelings.

“Yeah,” he said, and squeezed Phil’s hand. “Me, too.”

They went to bed not too long after that, Phil and Clint in Clint’s big bed (and oh, the luxury of his own proper linen sheets, worn soft with time and many washings) and Nat in her room, giving them both an indulgent smile before shutting the door behind her with a soft click of the latch. (It didn’t matter that Clint was literally several centuries older, she’d always had a bit of a tendency to fuss over him like a terrifying Russian mother hen. Even when she’d been tiny, she’d never hesitated to manage Clint if she felt he needed managing. And honestly, for a while after she’d pulled him out of the Red Room, he’d definitely needed it.) They moved around each other easily, a routine perfected in dozens of safehouses and SHIELD facility guest quarters and cheap motel rooms over the years, but this time when they climbed into bed they curled up in each other’s arms.

The next morning, Clint woke late; the room was still in a deep twilight gloom thanks to his blackout curtains, but he could always sort of tell how far up the sun was, and it felt about midmorning. Phil was still asleep, spooned up behind Clint (fortunately lying on his good side) with an arm slung over his middle. Clint’s shirt had ridden up, and Phil’s hand rested protectively over the healing pink scar where the SHIELD surgeons had removed the load of shot and stitched his guts back together.

Clint thought about slipping out of bed and getting up and… doing something; he was sure he had something that needed doing, laundry or whatever. But really, any chores he’d come up with had been undone since they left for Budapest. It wouldn’t hurt anything to let them wait a bit longer, especially when the alternative was to let himself drowse in bed with Phil warm and solid at his back. He could feel Phil’s heart beating, and the link was filled with a gentle, staticky sensation that was really quite pleasant. It was hearing like a quiet, not quite well-tuned radio in the next room over, if instead of sound a radio could somehow transmit the feeling of _warm/safe/rest_ over the air.

Phil woke gradually, making adorable sleepy noises for a while and clutching at Clint until full consciousness returned and he let go with a bleary apology, then pressed a kiss to the back of Clint’s shoulder before starting the process of disentangling himself from the bed and wandering into the bathroom, still blinking drowsily with his hair sticking up on one side. Clint’s bed was a lot less appealing a place to linger once there was no longer a Phil in it, so he got up too and went into the kitchen with vague ideas of making Phil some breakfast. Nat had left a note on the fridge that said “brunch inside, EAT and REST this means both of you, the drive will unlock for three hours at 2pm” and had one of SHIELD’s secure USB drives taped to the corner. The fridge contained fruit and yogurt and a strawberry-blood protein smoothie in a big stainless steel lidded cup with Clint’s name scribbled on a post-it, and there was granola in a bag on the counter and a little box with an assortment of pastries. 

Seriously, Natasha was the best.

They ate, and watched some more TV, and then later Phil worked for a few hours on the files Fury had sent him while Clint ran some laundry and sorted through the basket of mail that had come while he’d been gone. Nat came by for a while just before supper, to check on them and swap Phil’s USB drive for another one. Once she’d satisfied herself that neither of them were getting up to any injury-aggravating shenanigans and that the casserole Clint had pulled out of the freezer was nutritionally adequate for their recovery, she summoned up another smoothie, apparently out of thin air, and gave Clint a gimlet look until he slurped at it obediently. He’d be full as a tick before she let up, at this rate, but he wasn’t going to complain; he still felt kind of bad about how serious a scare he’d apparently given her.

Days passed, one much the same as the next; he and Phil spent a lot of time… well, cuddling, if Clint was honest. It was great. They kissed, too, but even though Clint desperately wanted to get Phil naked and taste him everywhere, he also wanted to wait until the swelling and bruising on Phil’s face (and elsewhere—he’d definitely given worse than he’d gotten, but Clint still saw him wincing if he moved around too fast) subsided before they got up to anything too strenuous. It was a lot easier to be patient—and avoid second thoughts of the _what-if-that-was-just-the-adrenaline_ variety—when Phil kept feeling so sweet in his head, pushing ragged waves of desire and awe and happiness and affection at Clint, seemingly whenever he looked over and noticed he was there. It was like having a billboard on the inside of his eyelids: PHIL LIKES YOU BACK.

On day six of their two-week leave, Clint looked over as they were doing the dinner dishes and realized that Phil’s face looked nearly normal again, his profile uninterrupted by swelling and the bruises reduced to faint shadows. Now that he thought about it, it had been a while since moving wrong had made his own insides twinge; even Natasha had stopped slipping blood into his food a couple days before. 

Phil held out a wet plate, soap bubbles on his forearms catching the light, and instead of taking it Clint just stared at him, all normal function suspended in the face of a vast wall of _want_. It was as though all of Clint’s desire—from the six days at home when they’d barely strayed more than an arm’s length from each other, from the days in Medical before that when they’d clung together in a single hospital bed trading wincing kisses and shoving emotions clumsily into each other’s brains, from the months before that, the years before that, when Clint had looked at Phil and ached to know himself unloveable by such a man, from the long centuries since Clint had closed his eyes on the battlefield and opened them a monster—all of it had been building up and up, like the ocean running out to form a tsunami.

Clint looked at Phil’s hand, the curves of strong capable fingers and muscled forearm, the stretch of his shoulders—warm and solid and so good to lean on—the notch of his collarbone, the achingly fine skin of his throat. He looked at Phil’s face, handsome and beloved, his expression shifting even as Clint watched from quizzical to hungry as the wave broke over them, Clint’s desire spilling down the link helplessly only to be met with the same in return. Clint _wanted_ , and he felt Phil want back, and saw Phil’s eyes darken and his face flush, heard his pulse quicken.

Phil put the plate back into the soapy water, careful and deliberate, and then he grabbed Clint’s bicep in one still-wet hand and pulled. Clint wasn’t entirely sure who moved which way for a little while after that; all his perceptions were completely full of Phil, the heat and the strength of him, the smell and the taste of him, the swirl of lust and euphoria flowing back and forth over the link between them, so entwined Clint couldn’t even tell which of them it came from. When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, Phil had both hands on Clint’s ass and Clint’s whole mouth was tingling with traces of Phil’s blood; Clint pulled back far enough to look and saw a little smear of red on Phil’s lip. His alarm was sharp enough to pierce through the link, and Phil blinked like he was shaking off a sedative or waking up from a nap. 

“Hmm? What’s—oh.” He licked the blood off his lip, and Clint kept his mouth very firmly closed, because no amount of willpower could keep his fangs from coming out at that. He _had_ to break Phil of that habit. Or else get him to do it again, all the time. Possibly make Clint a video. One or the other. 

“I guess that wasn’t as healed as I thought it was,” Phil said sheepishly. “Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Clint mumbled, burying his face in Phil’s shoulder so Phil couldn’t see his teeth, then immediately regretting it; Phil’s pulse was hammering in his throat, just inches away, smelling like everything desirable in the world. Clint’s mouth flooded with the thick saliva that only came when his fangs dropped. He could lick over that throbbing spot just under the line of Phil’s jaw. It would numb the skin, and then Clint could slide his teeth in, gentle and careful, points so sharp Phil wouldn’t even have a chance to feel it before the euphoria would take hold. Clint could make it _so good_ for him. He didn’t have to eat from the vein much these days, but he still remembered how to make it good.

Phil’s groan rumbled under his lips, and Clint realized he was mouthing at Phil’s pulse, lips closed—thank everything he’d ever held dear—but teeth aching, the points pricking at his own tongue.

_Get ahold of yourself, Barton._

He made himself pull back a little, trying to get some air that didn’t smell like every wet dream he’d ever had so he could drag his fangs back up where they belonged. Phil wasn’t helping; one of his hands was still full of Clint’s asscheek and the other was cupping the back of his neck.

“We’re in the kitchen,” Phil said at last. His lip had stopped bleeding, at least.

Clint nodded.

“We should go to bed,” Phil continued, and the way he said it—like he was directing Clint to move to a different roof for a better sightline—was just the last straw; Clint bent and then lifted, and then Phil was gasping out a laugh, flailing a little and then settling as Clint started carrying him down the hall to the bedroom, slung over his shoulder like a sack of very sexy potatoes.

Or something. Look. Clint had a lot on his mind.

“You have great ideas,” he told Phil, now that he didn’t have to worry about Phil seeing the dental version of a nip slip.

“Well, the view is unparalleled,” Phil said, a little breathless from laughter and the odd position but taking the opportunity to cup his big warm hands over the span of Clint’s ass. “This is poetry in motion.”

“Takes one to know one,” Clint said, giving Phil’s own ass a proprietary pat. His bedroom door was ajar, so he bumped it open with his knee and took several long strides across the room to the bed. He set Phil down in the middle, intending to pull back and give him a little space to take some clothes off while Clint took deep breaths and focused on his dick and not his teeth, but Phil apparently wasn’t in favor of that plan; he grabbed on instead of letting go, and there was a hot and confusing couple of moments before they stopped moving, Phil splayed out on his back in the middle of the duvet and Clint on top of him in a sort of a plank, propped up on his elbows with his groin nestled up against Phil’s, Phil’s legs wrapped around and holding him in place.

“That sort of thing would be annoying if it wasn’t so hot,” Clint told him, breathless.

Phil smirked up at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, and arched his hips up, making their erections rub through their clothes and punching a pretty undignified noise out of Clint’s throat. It just felt _so good_. It had been a really, really long time since anything felt that good.

“You forgot something, though,” Clint said, when he could speak more-or less coherently again.

“And what’s that?” Phil cocked his head a little. His eyes were bright, face flushed, lips wet and rosy from kisses even aside from the raw place where he’d been bleeding. Clint wanted to do _everything_ to him. Twice.

“We’re still dressed.” Clint indulged in a nice slow grind that made him shiver and made Phil clutch at his back, the breath coming out of him in a half-voiced groan. “I mean, we can dry-hump it if you really want, I’m not opposed, but I’d rather not do it in jeans.”

“Fair point, I suppose,” Phil said. He unwound his limbs from around Clint. Clint kind of wanted to tell him to put them back immediately, but reminded himself of the greater goal. He got up, making sure to rub against Phil as much as he could on the way, because it felt amazing and also it made Phil send little shivery jolts of lust down the link, which somehow made the whole thing even sexier.

“Naked?” He was pretty sure they were on the same page, but it was better to confirm stuff like that.

“Please.” Phil started tugging his shirttail out of his pants, and Clint had taken a half-step toward him before he remembered that he was supposed to be getting undressed too and that he couldn’t exactly do that if his hands were stuffed down Phil’s jeans. Especially since Phil filled out his jeans so well. It was a pleasure to see but didn’t leave much room for… activities.

Enough. Stripping now, activities in a minute.

He peeled out of his t-shirt so fast he got the neck stuck on his nose for a minute, then got his jeans off as fast as he could. When he’d gotten dressed that morning, he’d been thinking it was nice to feel better and wear more normal clothes, but just now he wished he’d kept up with the sweatpants and t-shirt ensembles he’d been rocking since getting home from Medical. He balled his laundry up and tossed it into his hamper, then looked around to catch Phil stepping out of his jeans.

Honestly, nobody should be able to look sexy while wearing nothing but white athletic socks, gray boxer-briefs, and the faint remnants of a massive facial bruise. Phil was definitely pulling it off, though. Maybe Clint wasn’t the only one in this bedroom with weird powers.

Phil bent over to pick up his jeans, and Clint felt a little faint at the view. It was a good thing Nat had been feeding him up, because he was pretty sure every ounce of blood he had to spare was currently spoken for by his dick, which was apparently attempting to get on over to Phil whether the rest of Clint came with or not.

“Fuck the laundry,” Clint said. “Wait, no. Fuck _me_. Like, right now.” 

Phil blinked at him, jeans falling back out of his hands onto the floor.

That might have been a little… abrupt.

“Please?” Clint added. He yanked the drawer of his nightstand open—a little too hard, if the crunchy sound it made was an indication—and grabbed the bottle of lube. He tossed it to Phil—who caught it out of the air, naturally, _so sexy_ —flung the duvet back, and crawled to the middle of the bed, bracing himself on his (very sturdy) headboard and turning to look at Phil over his shoulder.

Phil was still staring at him, blinking a little too much, his face deep pink under the residual bruising. Clint would have worried he’d gone a little too far, except for how the link was practically on fire between them, and the only thing he was getting from Phil besides lust and happiness was a complex feeling that made Clint think, for some reason, of having an ice cream cone in each hand and not being able to decide which one to lick first.

(Clint sympathized. He wanted to lick Phil’s _everything_. He couldn’t this time, though. Not until he convinced his fangs that they were decidedly unwelcome at this party. He needed to keep his face away from Phil until he could be sure he wouldn’t get overwhelmed and go in for a little nibble.)

“C’mon babe.” He waggled his ass a little, enticing, and Phil made a sound composed mostly of vowels and then scrambled to join him, plastering himself against Clint’s back. His hands felt amazing, hot and a little rough as he stroked up Clint’s stomach to skim over his nipples. He nipped Clint’s earlobe—and that was so _good_ , how on earth was it that good?—and then sucked on it a little as his hands worked over Clint’s chest, his big cock riding over the cleft of Clint’s ass. Even through his shorts, it was hot and hard and amazing, and it was Clint’s turn to make an incoherent noise, his hips bucking back without any conscious input.

Phil let go of Clint’s earlobe. He was breathing fast, shivery-good on the sensitive skin still wet from his mouth, his hands still busy and his hips still moving in a slow roll, every bit of it winding Clint higher. 

“So good,” Clint told him, trying to push forward into Phil’s hands and backward into his cock at the same time, and winding up just sort of vibrating in place. “Keep going, anything you want, babe, anything.” He let go of the headboard with one hand and reached back, wanting to touch Phil more, to show him how much he loved it. His hand skated along Phil’s flank, over sleek hot skin, and Phil rumbled an approving sound that Clint could feel vibrating in his chest.

“Fuck, you’re incredible.” Phil’s voice was low and rasping, his lips so close still that they brushed Clint’s skin. “I used to look at you and—I never thought, I didn’t think I’d ever—but now we’re here and I, I don’t have enough hands, I want to do everything at once, I—” he broke off and kissed Clint’s neck again, sucking gently at first and then harder when Clint groaned in pleasure, pushing feelings of y _es yes yes more more more_ down the link.

“We can do everything,” Clint promised. “Anything. We’ll do whatever you want. Just, please—“ he pushed his hips back as far as he could, grinding a little—“inside me? First? I want it so bad, Phil, wanna feel you in my body like you’re in my mind, want it both ways at once, it’ll be so good.” He didn’t know how he knew, but he _knew_ ; from the way Phil shuddered and clutched at him again, he thought Phil probably knew it too.

“Yeah,” Phil said. His heart was pounding against Clint’s back, his body a hot vital weight on top of him, brilliant and alive and adored. Phil hugged him tight for a long moment before letting go and sitting back on his knees between Clint’s calves. Clint pouted a little, but didn’t say anything, because when he looked back he saw Phil groping for the lube bottle without looking, his eyes fixed on Clint’s ass like he thought it might escape if he looked away.

Yeah, that was _not_ happening.

The bottle cap clicked, and Phil rested one big warm hand on Clint’s hip, nudging Clint’s knees a little farther apart. Phil didn’t hesitate, stroking firmly over Clint’s hole with a slick finger, rubbing over the muscle in a way that felt impossibly good. Clint wasn’t sure how it was even possible for it to feel that amazing when Phil hadn’t even gotten inside Clint yet, but he wasn’t about to question it.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he said, craning his neck to watch Phil over his shoulder as that finger pushed the barest distance inside him, so good but not nearly enough. Phil’s face was incredible, concentration interlaced with flashes of delight, and all of it utterly focused on Clint. He’d very rarely felt so exposed, so thoroughly seen, and never before in circumstances like this. It wasn’t comfortable—Clint had spent far too long perfecting the arts of blending in and going unremarked for it to be comfortable—but even the discomfort of it was good somehow. He felt a little like Phil was cracking him open, peeling him out of some kind of shell that he hadn’t realized he’d outgrown and letting him unfurl. He felt himself start to tremble.

“Easy,” Phil murmured, his dry hand stroking up and down Clint’s side, curving around to just glance past his nipple, to brush the side of his straining cock. “We’ll get there, I promise, I just—I want to linger a little. Enjoy the moment. I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to worry.”

Clint thought about that. He wanted to push ahead—well, to push _back_ , more like, to get going before…

Huh.

He tried to look past the all-absorbing feeling of Phil behind him, his body heat radiating to make Clint’s skin prickle with awareness even where they weren’t touching, his one finger tantalizing and still. Clint felt desperate; who wouldn’t feel desperate, with all that, that _Phil_ so close but still so far? But now that he’d stopped to pay attention, he saw what Phil had already noticed, maybe through the link or maybe just because he was looking, attuned to Clint even more than normal since he’d thought that Clint was lost in Budapest: his own… well. Phil had called it worry, but that was an understatement. It was more like panic, if panic had calcified; a worn-in base assumption that nothing good could last, that nothing gold could stay, that the joy and warmth and closeness he was feeling was destined to fade or flee and that the only thing Clint could do was grab as much as he could while it was still in reach.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Phil said again, flooding the link with a bedrock certainty that tasted like steel in Clint’s mind, felt like gravity; a law of nature so ubiquitous you didn’t even notice it anymore. 

The link still flowed between them, deeper and wider than it had been, like a river cutting out its banks. If it dried up, if it faded away, would Clint be carved out hollow as a canyon in its wake? He was already in so deep, here. It had been hundreds of years since he’d died in front of someone who didn’t know his secret and hadn’t run.

He wasn’t sure what he was letting into the link, but Phil didn’t flinch from it, just stayed steady, letting Clint’s emotions break over him like stone, rooted and sure.

“I won’t leave,” he said again, softly. “Not willingly. Not unless you want me to go.”

Clint shuddered, because that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Clint had so many more ways than Phil imagined to get what he wanted. He sometimes still had nightmares of the way it had felt with Duquesne, every morsel of Clint’s soul straining to get away, battering himself to no avail against the walls of that strangling will. If this didn’t last—if Phil learned the truth and wanted nothing to do with Clint afterward, or if the passion burned itself out and he just didn’t want Clint anymore after a while—would Clint be able to let him go? Or would he turn their link into chains, bind Phil to him deep in his core? Phil wasn’t even a vampire, didn’t have as much strength to fight back as Clint had. Could Clint overwhelm him without even realizing he’d done it?

“Don’t promise that.” His voice grated, like he had stones in his throat. “Phil, you have to be careful. The link—I don’t know, I haven’t ever—what if it’s me making you feel that way? I’d never want to, I swear, but I might not realize I was doing it. I might make you love me.”

“No,” Phil said. “You won’t.”

“You don’t understand,” Clint insisted. “Hell, _I_ don’t understand, not entirely, I’m just winging this. What if I—Phil, I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you like that.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Phil said. His hand stroked over Clint’s back, the pressure soothing and sure. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t have to be afraid of that. I don’t care what kind of powers you have, Clint, you can’t create something that already exists. The link isn’t forcing anything, it’s just letting you see what was already there. That I love you. That I want to stay with you, as close as you’ll let me, for as long as possible. That this connection—“ he flooded the link again, oceans of warm enveloping sweetness, like nothing Clint had ever known—“is a priceless gift that I will never stop being grateful for.”

He leaned down and kissed the dip at the base of Clint’s spine, lingering and firm, his lips hot and wet. It made Clint think of sealing a letter, neatly puddling the wax and then pressing your signet down. 

A memory floated out of his subconscious; candlelight and the smell of incense. _Pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum… quia fortis est ut more dilectio_.

“Phil,” he whispered. 

“Let me show you,” Phil said. “Please. Trust me.” He moved his finger a little, stroking slow along Clint’s rim, and Clint went weak at the knees. He felt like he was setting something down, slipping something free, suddenly unbalanced without its weight.

He let his head drop, the tension in his muscles letting go, and he might have slumped down onto the bed if he weren’t braced on the headboard. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I—whatever you want, Phil. Yes. Please.”

“Thank you,” Phil said, and his voice was solemn but the link was surging between them with triumph and amazement and determination and joy.

 _Aquae multae non potuerunt extinguere caritatem,_ Clint thought, _nec flumina obruent illam._

He surrendered himself to the flood.

Time slowed as he focused on the moment, letting himself float on the currents of affection—of _love_ , Phil had said so, he’d named it and he wouldn’t lie—down the link and the achingly slow tender invasion of his body. It wasn’t a perfect vessel—scarred and battered inside and out, by time and hurt and his monstrous gift—but it was all he had, and Clint couldn’t remember a time when anyone had treated it with so much care: not like something fragile, but like something precious. Phil coaxed Clint’s body open little by little, gentle and relentless, murmuring praise and encouragement every time Clint gasped or moaned or pushed back into his hands. By the time Phil had four fingers in him, Clint felt like he was floating, everything thick and sweet and beautiful inside him and around him.

He hadn’t been able to get drunk since 1415, but this felt a little like it, only instead of feeling insulated from his feelings he was bathed in them, washed over and around with safety and happiness and love.

His cock was hard, his fangs had dropped, his ass was so empty it ached, but none of that mattered. Phil could take all the time he wanted: hours, years. Clint could wait forever for him, suspended in that moment where all his old hurts and fears paled beside the deftness of Phil’s hands and the brilliance of his heart.

Phil’s hands left for a moment, and Clint felt the bed jostle a little and then saw Phil’s underwear—had he been wearing those this whole time?—go sailing across the room toward the hamper. Clint made an approving rumble of sound; words seemed like too much effort, just then, but Phil-nudity deserved encouragement. Phil stroked down Clint’s spine.

“Now?” Clint managed, looking back hopefully.

“Now,” Phil said. And then finally, _finally,_ he took his cock in his hand and guided himself in. Clint was so soft and open that there was no resistance at all, just a long, slow slide, in and in and in while Clint groaned. Phil leaned down as soon as he was fully seated, wrapping his arms around Clint and scattering kisses along the back of his neck, the slope of his shoulders.

“So good.” Clint wanted to move but he never wanted to move, never wanted it to be over, just wanted to stay there forever with Phil in his body and his blood, wrapped up safe and cherished.

“Yes,” Phil said, and he squeezed Clint harder, at the same time sending yet another wave of feeling through the link. “Here, let me move you?”

“Okay,” Clint said. What, like he was going to say no? Phil could ask him to, to get up and dance the can-can right now and Clint would do his best to give him whatever he wanted.

Phil kissed him again, sucking a little at the same spot as earlier; Clint wondered if he’d left a mark. He hoped so. 

“C’mon,” Phil said, and he sat up again, tugging Clint along with him until they were both kneeling upright on the bed, Clint’s legs spread to either side of Phil’s, Phil’s cock still buried in Clint’s body and Clint’s back flush against Phil’s hot, furry chest. Clint’s nipples and cock ached, prickling in the air. Phil mouthed the side of Clint’s neck again, his hands roaming Clint’s front side. He plucked lightly at Clint’s nipples before skimming down his abs, tracing the line of hair down to his cock. Clint shook with anticipation as those clever fingers circled him, and then at last Phil wrapped his slick hand around Clint’s shaft and the other around his balls and just held on, gentle but firm. Clint whined, writhing between Phil’s cock and Phil’s hands, his breath catching with how good it felt, but it still wasn’t enough.

“More, please, more, do it, fuck me,” he babbled, letting his head fall back onto Phil’s shoulder, baring more of his neck for Phil to nibble while he tried to move. “Phil, please, I want it, please _now_ —“

“Yeah, fuck,” Phil said, his breath hot on Clint’s neck, and he moved, his cock sliding out of Clint at the same time his hand was pulling loosely up Clint’s shaft. He paused at the peak of the motion, his thighs tense and trembling, the tip of him just barely inside, mirroring the way that his hand was still wrapped just around the head of Clint’s cock, and then he thrust _in_ and pushed _down_ at the same time and Clint shouted in surprise and pleasure at the feeling, like Phil’s cock and his hand were going to meet in the middle.

Now that he’d started moving, Phil set a frantic pace, like he’d completely exhausted his patience in the long slow lead-in and now he’d combust if he waited for a moment longer. Clint moved with him, pushing down into his thrusts and up into his fist, making noises that he hardly even understood—he might have been speaking Latin or Russian or Middle English or just babbling nonsense, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Phil, inside and around and _inside_ , rough hands and fervent lips and swelling waves of lust and love that all blended and swirled and meshed together. It built and built, each thrust like a hammer, like building a wall, like climbing a mountain: better and better and better until Phil gasped, and his cock somehow got harder and hotter, his hand tightened, and he bit down on the crook of Clint’s shoulder as he started to come. His pleasure flashed like lightning along Clint’s nerves, and then Clint was coming too, so intense it almost hurt, Phil’s teeth and Phil’s hand and Phil’s cock like circuits connecting through Clint’s body and swamping him with bliss.

They stayed there for a timeless moment, then Phil’s grip loosened and Clint’s body slumped back and they sort of rolled together down onto their sides on the bed, chests heaving. Phil spooned up behind Clint, cock still half inside him, their legs still tangled, Phil’s hand still cradling Clint’s cock. Phil kept pressing little, nibbling kisses onto the backs of Clint’s shoulders, stroking little aftershocks out of him with fingers wet with Clint’s come. The link felt almost comically good, sleek and smug and replete like a cat purring.

“Holy shit,” Clint said, some time later. “That was. Fuck.”

Phil huffed a tiny laugh into the back of Clint’s neck. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I came so hard I think I sprained something.”

Clint stirred, half-thinking that he should move so Phil could get more comfortable.

“Stop that,” Phil said. “I’m fine. Just relax and enjoy the afterglow.”

“Kay.” Clint hadn’t really wanted to move, anyway. He was too busy memorizing the way Phil felt and smelled and sounded. Also Clint might, he realized, have nicked his own lip with his fangs there at the end, and he needed a little time for the cut to close up. At least his teeth were finally behaving themselves. Maybe Clint was just so sexually sated that his body couldn’t bother being any kind of hungry for a while. 

Phil seemed just as happy as Clint was to stay where they were, until finally his cock slipped all the way out of Clint. He sighed, giving Clint one last shiver-inducing little squeeze before shifting a little, just enough to straighten out his legs some.

“We should probably clean up,” he said, not moving.

“Probably,” Clint agreed, tightening the hold he’d gotten on Phil’s arm at some point during the proceedings. “Not now, though. We’re afterglow…ing.”

Phil hummed. “Whatever you want,” he said. “They’re your sheets, I don’t mind the wet spot if you don’t.”

“They’ll wash,” Clint said. His whole body felt sweet and heavy and he wanted to move approximately never. All his nerves were still buzzing. Like cicadas or something, if cicadas said _Phil, Phil, Phil._

Phil, who he loved, and who loved him. Who _loved_ him. Who had loved him before Budapest happened, before the link, all of his own accord.

“Hey,” he said, realizing he’d been too busy having his world rocked to make a key point sufficiently clear. “Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too. I mean, I figure you know, but. Yeah.”

Phil kissed his neck. “I do know,” he said. “But it’s good to hear.” His arms tightened. “I never in a million years thought we’d end up this way. I was happy enough that you let me into your life at all; honestly I don’t know if I’d ever have dared to say anything. But I thought you were gone, and I got you back, and then I thought… well. It seemed like maybe it was my day for miracles.”

Clint pulled one of Phil’s hands up to his mouth and kissed it, closing his eyes against the swell of emotion that rose up in his throat and down their link, where Phil met it and returned it, measure for measure.

“And here I thought you said you weren’t good at talking about your feelings,” he said, his throat thick.

Phil kissed him again, again, again, until the hair on Clint’s arms lifted with how good it felt.

“What can I say,” Phil said into his ear. “You inspire me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Latin Clint is thinking of is from the Song of Solomon. The first passage translates to "set me as a seal upon your heart... for love is strong as death" and the second is "many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah I had to split my outline because it kept growing, so I'm probably going to write a Loki/TAHITI/Avengers fix-it sequel to this eventually. And likely a prequel about Clint and Baby! Red Room! Nat. And who knows what else, depends what strikes my fancy, but watch this space/subscribe to the series if you want more Soft Vampire Love (or to see if Clint eventually fangs up and tells Phil the truth about his "powers.")
> 
> Yes the series title and story title are Henry V quotes. Because Agincourt.
> 
> Other stuff that I thought about a lot but didn't necessarily make the story:  
> -Clint's first language was likely Middle English  
> -At some point once the secret's out he will definitely attempt to seduce Phil by quoting the dirtiest parts of the Canterbury Tales to him in the original. It will be super effective.  
> -Clint comes across as surprisingly well-read because he still thinks of things like Chaucer and Shakespeare the same way he thinks of airport best-sellers or popcorn movies.  
> -He likes historical movies and TV because he can either nitpick their inaccuracies or get nostalgic about stuff he misses from the past (mostly clothes, well-made housewares, and the ability to essentially become a new person on the strength of plausible-looking belongings and a couple letters of introduction.)  
> -He's a wardrobe packrat like Aziraphale and probably still has some favorite outfits tucked away in the hopes that, say, breeches will come back into style one day. There's no need to throw away perfectly good clothes, geez.  
> -I am 100% sure Clint trolls historians on the internet. There are probably conspiracy theories out there that he's some kind of recluse sitting on a treasure trove of primary sources in a private collection somewhere and there is at least one person working on a history thesis who is desperately trying to get him to share them. Since said private collection is a combination of Clint's memory and his various storage facilities, he's not been very helpful.  
> -There is actually a whole underground vampire society in this universe but Clint is the vampire equivalent of raised by wolves because he was turned by a rogue who held him under Maker's Thrall and made him do crimes and never told him shit, so as soon as Clint got away he made it his mission in unlife to never get near another vampire EVER AGAIN. The fact that he has successfully avoided them all for centuries despite knowing basically nothing is extremely embarrassing to the vampire ruling council.  
> -In this universe, the super soldier serum is derived from vampire blood.  
> -In this universe, vampirism was originally much like the Inhuman gene - a product of alien experimentation.


End file.
